Endings and Beginnings
So. Here it is. The story I could not get out of my head. I guess at this point it's my Alternate Ending piece, though, honestly, I still hope my muse will strike and I'll be able to write one that is slightly...happier.
The moment I finished BSG I started thinking of how my AE would go, 'cause... you know. You've most likely seen the end, you know. Anyway, again, I had hoped for something happier, but this story just wouldn't get out of my head until I wrote it down.
Bear with me, it's quite long, (total of about 10 000 words) so I'm posting in sections to try not to scare you all off. Please be gentle...
So.
Arriving at Earth from Laura's P.O.V.
Notes on Spoilers
[Spoilerphobes Beware]
There a few differences, obviously, from the canon. In terms of the show as aired, I tried to stay as canon as possible through Daybreak up until they come out of the the final jump input by Kara. It diverges from there. For the purposes of my AE, both the Galactica and Laura aren't quite as broken as RDM had it. The Galactica still has FTL capabilities and Laura has weeks, not days. Also, they find contemporary Earth, not pre-historic earth.
Strength in Pain; Or That One Time Laura Roslin Brought Them to Earth and They Didn't Stay.
Laura Roslin has a plan.
She has always had a plan, certainly at least once it was clear that the diloxan was killing her but not the cancer, once the chamalla could no longer hold even the pain in bay. She was going to die, but she would do it her way. She would spend her last days in Bill's rack, in Bill's Quarters, on Bill's Galactica, surrounded by Bill's family. She had lost her own, years ago, to cancer and car crashes, and finally, to a stray bullet. She would share Bill's. She had Lee and Kara and Saul and Ellen, and even though they were not the family she had started with, they were the one she loved.
Only once in a long, long, while, once in a blue, blue, moon, did she imagine how, given a choice, she would prefer to die. Cuddled in a camp chair meant for two, with Bill keeping her warm under a warm, red woolen blanket. Outside a cabin, by a stream with water so clear it was looking through glass. Only once in a while did she let herself imagine this death, only once in a blue moon. If she thought too much about what she couldn't have, she'd waste what little time she had left with pointless regrets.
Laura Roslin knows her death would leave wounded.
She knows it hurts the ones she loves that she increasingly wishes that she could simply go to sleep, knows it hurts them that she’d lost any interest in living. She no longer cared about Quorum politics, no longer cared about the myriad presidential duties that had once taken all her energy. She no longer cared, (at least since they had found the Original Earth), in the prophecies of Pythia, in its pronouncements with regards to the Dying Leader. She simply wanted to crawl under the covers, curl up with the love of her life, and wait for the pain to end.
Only once in a while did she allow herself to picture the impact of her death. Only once in a while did she allow herself to see the strain of her dying on the face of the strongest man she had ever met. She knew it would kill him when she finally went, and so most days she made herself focus on living. The gods truly had a sense of a humour, to save her from the end of worlds, (twice!), to survive New Caprica, to survive Cylons and cancer (at least the first time) and Kobol, and then to make her die. Make her die when she had finally found someone who made her wonder what it would have been like to truly live. She made him promise that he would go on without her. He did, and so she tried to convince herself he wasn't lying. Most of the time she succeeded.
Laura Roslin knows they would find earth, an earth to settle upon. (Eventually).
She just wouldn't be among them. Apollo's bright shiny future wasn't for her, any more than it seemed to be for Starbuck. Not for Kara, who had taken to wandering aimlessly through the halls of the ship, screaming that they were going the wrong way! Laura did care about the pain all three of them were causing Bill, who still managed, alone among them, to get stronger the more damage he took. Still. There was only so much any man could take. For him, then, she tried to remember to smile, and to laugh, and, on very good days, to flirt just a tiny bit. She was rewarded with the way her warmth could fill him up, by the answering light in his eyes. She tried, for him. She couldn't think of any other way to relieve his pain. If it were up to her, she simply take it all and add it to hers, (she'd barely notice). But the gods simply refused to be that kind.
Only once in a while, during this long journey, exiled from two homes, had she allowed herself to imagine what this new Earth might be like. Needless to say, Original Earth had failed to live up to expectations, spectacularly. So, every once in a while, in a long, long while, she allowed herself to imagine a blue orb, with warm, welcoming people. She imagined living on that blue orb, under a bright yellow sun. She imagined swimming in its oceans, having the sun and the surf warm her constantly chilled bones.
So when Starbuck, in desperation, input those final coordinates and her beloved Galactica made that last jump, landing in space above that orb shaded in the bluest of blues, she felt that maybe the gods had decided to give her this last gift after all. Her people would be safe and she could watch them from above as they settled on this rich, warm, planet. Bill would never leave his ship, and she refused to waste these last few days being anywhere he was not.
The surf and the sea and the sky would have to wait. She would sleep, safe in the sky above, while he watched over her, as he had so often done these last few years. There was a reason Colonial One had always orbited next to the Galactica. It was the safest place in the fleet, and it symbolized unity among the fleet leadership. She had long needed to be closer to the care provided by Galactica’s medical personnel and therefore no longer lived on her ship. Still, the symbolism of that harmony, set up after the disastrous disagreement over Kobol, continued to serve them well. As she turned over presidential responsibilities to Lee, as she slowly moved into the tangible warmth of her Admiral’s Quarters, she knew that she would never really return to the ship she had loved. She no longer had a need to. Her people could rest, assured that the Adamas would find a way to make the civil-military relationship work while they negotiated with the peoples of Earth to settle on their new home.
And they appeared welcoming, at least at first. So, despite the early difficulties she encountered with Earth's fractured peoples, Laura refused to be seriously concerned. Her people had survived longer odds that this, and she had Bill and Lee on her side. She had Starbuck to buck her up, and they had even found a way to make this new alliance with the Cylons work. Thanks to their upgrades, the fleet was even able to process badly-needed energy from the excess gases of the planet the Earthlings called Saturn. In the meantime, they seemed to be acting in good faith, sending badly-needed food and medical supplies.
So Laura tried her best to play her part. She took her meds, and she tried to force the pain down, deep inside her, so that she could concentrate. So she could pay attention when Lee briefed her about the United Nations and the United States and the United Emirates; about superpowers and climate change and protest movements, (both for and against them). Laura had never been overly interested in international relations, but she tried to help. Talking to her seemed to help Lee work out his understanding of issues, and she did her best to mentor him. Not that he needed much. He was a natural. So, she refused to be worried. One benefit of dying, she found, was that she could take an optimist approach to the future.
It wasn't until it was reported that Lee and his escort were severely overdue from a routine visit, (from somewhere called Camp David), that she had her first serious moment of concern. Normally Laura would have been amongst them, but she had been having one of her (increasingly common) bad days, and Lee had assured her that he could handle it. He was so careful with her, working to ensure that her role as the living, (or dying), symbol of the 'Lost Colonies of Kobol' remained untarnished. It helped, both for her sense of purpose and in negotiations with the Earthlings. Meanwhile he took over much of the authority and responsibilities of the office of President. She worried about him, particularly since his relationship with Kara remained both unresolved and electric, but he had proven to be as strong as his father.
But when Bill came to his quarters in the middle of his shift to brief her, she knew the situation planet side was worse than she could have imagined. She could almost smell the lightning in the air as her world changed once again. It appeared that Colonial party was delayed, again, and in fact would be delayed indefinitely. The Earthlings had decided to play hardball. They were prepared to hold the Colonial leadership, (in every comfort, of course), until the Fleet agreed to part with some of their advanced technology.
'By which they mean weapons.' Laura said wearily.
'Weapons, FTL drives, information on Cylon biology, food and medicine processing capabilities, communications, etc. Basically everything we have.'
'And with no guarantee that they will welcome us, either in short or long term.'
'No guarantees.'
'They want every piece of leverage we have, and they want to study us.'
'Yes.' Bill scrubbed his face.
Laura couldn't remember the last time he'd slept in his bed, and she knew the stress of Lee's situation only added to his exhaustion. She sighed.
'All of this has happened before and all of this will happen again.'
'What?'
'Humans. We're always the same, when we get scared, this is what we do.'
'The question is, what do we do, now?'
So Laura Roslin came up with new plan.
The moment I finished BSG I started thinking of how my AE would go, 'cause... you know. You've most likely seen the end, you know. Anyway, again, I had hoped for something happier, but this story just wouldn't get out of my head until I wrote it down.
Bear with me, it's quite long, (total of about 10 000 words) so I'm posting in sections to try not to scare you all off. Please be gentle...
So.
Arriving at Earth from Laura's P.O.V.
Notes on Spoilers
[Spoilerphobes Beware]
There a few differences, obviously, from the canon. In terms of the show as aired, I tried to stay as canon as possible through Daybreak up until they come out of the the final jump input by Kara. It diverges from there. For the purposes of my AE, both the Galactica and Laura aren't quite as broken as RDM had it. The Galactica still has FTL capabilities and Laura has weeks, not days. Also, they find contemporary Earth, not pre-historic earth.
Strength in Pain; Or That One Time Laura Roslin Brought Them to Earth and They Didn't Stay.
Laura Roslin has a plan.
She has always had a plan, certainly at least once it was clear that the diloxan was killing her but not the cancer, once the chamalla could no longer hold even the pain in bay. She was going to die, but she would do it her way. She would spend her last days in Bill's rack, in Bill's Quarters, on Bill's Galactica, surrounded by Bill's family. She had lost her own, years ago, to cancer and car crashes, and finally, to a stray bullet. She would share Bill's. She had Lee and Kara and Saul and Ellen, and even though they were not the family she had started with, they were the one she loved.
Only once in a long, long, while, once in a blue, blue, moon, did she imagine how, given a choice, she would prefer to die. Cuddled in a camp chair meant for two, with Bill keeping her warm under a warm, red woolen blanket. Outside a cabin, by a stream with water so clear it was looking through glass. Only once in a while did she let herself imagine this death, only once in a blue moon. If she thought too much about what she couldn't have, she'd waste what little time she had left with pointless regrets.
Laura Roslin knows her death would leave wounded.
She knows it hurts the ones she loves that she increasingly wishes that she could simply go to sleep, knows it hurts them that she’d lost any interest in living. She no longer cared about Quorum politics, no longer cared about the myriad presidential duties that had once taken all her energy. She no longer cared, (at least since they had found the Original Earth), in the prophecies of Pythia, in its pronouncements with regards to the Dying Leader. She simply wanted to crawl under the covers, curl up with the love of her life, and wait for the pain to end.
Only once in a while did she allow herself to picture the impact of her death. Only once in a while did she allow herself to see the strain of her dying on the face of the strongest man she had ever met. She knew it would kill him when she finally went, and so most days she made herself focus on living. The gods truly had a sense of a humour, to save her from the end of worlds, (twice!), to survive New Caprica, to survive Cylons and cancer (at least the first time) and Kobol, and then to make her die. Make her die when she had finally found someone who made her wonder what it would have been like to truly live. She made him promise that he would go on without her. He did, and so she tried to convince herself he wasn't lying. Most of the time she succeeded.
Laura Roslin knows they would find earth, an earth to settle upon. (Eventually).
She just wouldn't be among them. Apollo's bright shiny future wasn't for her, any more than it seemed to be for Starbuck. Not for Kara, who had taken to wandering aimlessly through the halls of the ship, screaming that they were going the wrong way! Laura did care about the pain all three of them were causing Bill, who still managed, alone among them, to get stronger the more damage he took. Still. There was only so much any man could take. For him, then, she tried to remember to smile, and to laugh, and, on very good days, to flirt just a tiny bit. She was rewarded with the way her warmth could fill him up, by the answering light in his eyes. She tried, for him. She couldn't think of any other way to relieve his pain. If it were up to her, she simply take it all and add it to hers, (she'd barely notice). But the gods simply refused to be that kind.
Only once in a while, during this long journey, exiled from two homes, had she allowed herself to imagine what this new Earth might be like. Needless to say, Original Earth had failed to live up to expectations, spectacularly. So, every once in a while, in a long, long while, she allowed herself to imagine a blue orb, with warm, welcoming people. She imagined living on that blue orb, under a bright yellow sun. She imagined swimming in its oceans, having the sun and the surf warm her constantly chilled bones.
So when Starbuck, in desperation, input those final coordinates and her beloved Galactica made that last jump, landing in space above that orb shaded in the bluest of blues, she felt that maybe the gods had decided to give her this last gift after all. Her people would be safe and she could watch them from above as they settled on this rich, warm, planet. Bill would never leave his ship, and she refused to waste these last few days being anywhere he was not.
The surf and the sea and the sky would have to wait. She would sleep, safe in the sky above, while he watched over her, as he had so often done these last few years. There was a reason Colonial One had always orbited next to the Galactica. It was the safest place in the fleet, and it symbolized unity among the fleet leadership. She had long needed to be closer to the care provided by Galactica’s medical personnel and therefore no longer lived on her ship. Still, the symbolism of that harmony, set up after the disastrous disagreement over Kobol, continued to serve them well. As she turned over presidential responsibilities to Lee, as she slowly moved into the tangible warmth of her Admiral’s Quarters, she knew that she would never really return to the ship she had loved. She no longer had a need to. Her people could rest, assured that the Adamas would find a way to make the civil-military relationship work while they negotiated with the peoples of Earth to settle on their new home.
And they appeared welcoming, at least at first. So, despite the early difficulties she encountered with Earth's fractured peoples, Laura refused to be seriously concerned. Her people had survived longer odds that this, and she had Bill and Lee on her side. She had Starbuck to buck her up, and they had even found a way to make this new alliance with the Cylons work. Thanks to their upgrades, the fleet was even able to process badly-needed energy from the excess gases of the planet the Earthlings called Saturn. In the meantime, they seemed to be acting in good faith, sending badly-needed food and medical supplies.
So Laura tried her best to play her part. She took her meds, and she tried to force the pain down, deep inside her, so that she could concentrate. So she could pay attention when Lee briefed her about the United Nations and the United States and the United Emirates; about superpowers and climate change and protest movements, (both for and against them). Laura had never been overly interested in international relations, but she tried to help. Talking to her seemed to help Lee work out his understanding of issues, and she did her best to mentor him. Not that he needed much. He was a natural. So, she refused to be worried. One benefit of dying, she found, was that she could take an optimist approach to the future.
It wasn't until it was reported that Lee and his escort were severely overdue from a routine visit, (from somewhere called Camp David), that she had her first serious moment of concern. Normally Laura would have been amongst them, but she had been having one of her (increasingly common) bad days, and Lee had assured her that he could handle it. He was so careful with her, working to ensure that her role as the living, (or dying), symbol of the 'Lost Colonies of Kobol' remained untarnished. It helped, both for her sense of purpose and in negotiations with the Earthlings. Meanwhile he took over much of the authority and responsibilities of the office of President. She worried about him, particularly since his relationship with Kara remained both unresolved and electric, but he had proven to be as strong as his father.
But when Bill came to his quarters in the middle of his shift to brief her, she knew the situation planet side was worse than she could have imagined. She could almost smell the lightning in the air as her world changed once again. It appeared that Colonial party was delayed, again, and in fact would be delayed indefinitely. The Earthlings had decided to play hardball. They were prepared to hold the Colonial leadership, (in every comfort, of course), until the Fleet agreed to part with some of their advanced technology.
'By which they mean weapons.' Laura said wearily.
'Weapons, FTL drives, information on Cylon biology, food and medicine processing capabilities, communications, etc. Basically everything we have.'
'And with no guarantee that they will welcome us, either in short or long term.'
'No guarantees.'
'They want every piece of leverage we have, and they want to study us.'
'Yes.' Bill scrubbed his face.
Laura couldn't remember the last time he'd slept in his bed, and she knew the stress of Lee's situation only added to his exhaustion. She sighed.
'All of this has happened before and all of this will happen again.'
'What?'
'Humans. We're always the same, when we get scared, this is what we do.'
'The question is, what do we do, now?'
So Laura Roslin came up with new plan.