Title: Do You Dream
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica
Rating: K+
Genres: het
Recipient:
sgteam14283Prompt: Battlestar Galactica, Helo/Sharon, how the couch got into Sharon's cell
Summary: No one knows where the couch came from. One day, it was just there. Helo wonders.
A/N:
Holiday Fic Request Meme. So. I wrote a couple Lee/Kara stories for BSG, never Helo/Sharon. But now that I look back, my interest shifted almost silently from Lee/Kara as my main ship to Helo/Sharon. I always liked them (more than Sharon/Chief, to be honest) but somehow they took a while to shift into focus fully. So I was delighted when
sgteam14283 prompted them but, as with all my virgin fics in this meme, really nervous about finding the right tone for them and the right story. I hope I did at least marginally well in here :S
PS.: Oh God, the song I chose for this makes me feel so old. I know what she's singing about. I was ten years old when war in Bosnia broke out. I have customers calling today who were born in 1992 :S
Do You Dream
“When you close your eyes:
Do you dream of peace?
Do you dream of flowers on the hill?
Do you dream you see your mother smiling?
When you close your eyes do you dream of peace?”
Judy Collins, “Song for Sarajevo” No one knows where the couch came from. One day, it was just there. Sharon doesn't say anything about it but Sharon doesn't say much these days, anyway. There are a few suspects - the Old Man first and foremost - but he never voices them. What would be the purpose, anyway? The couch is here and that's enough because despite the glaring light and the glass walls, sitting on the couch with Sharon in his arms feels somehow normal again.
He resists snorting. Normal is a word they should just scratch from their vocabulary. There's nothing normal about sitting in a cell with your Cylon girlfriend while the two Marines at the door do their hardest to pretend they're giving you some privacy. But it's the only way to be close to her and so he takes it. It's the only way he can watch her sleep.
It's funny, he thinks. People have been asking him if "androids dream of electric sheep" but he just grins usually. He knows what Sharon is dreaming about. It's not pleasant. So better grin at them than tell them. They wouldn't understand anyway.
So he steadily plows through his paper work with Sharon's head in his lap. She's uncannily quiet, never moving in her sleep but he got used to that by now. It freaked him out in the beginning because he couldn't help being shit scared that her consciousness left her body or some such nonsense but he learned that it's just the way she sleeps. It's the way his Sharon sleeps because he remembers the Chief telling him once ages ago that the Sharon he was having a relationship with was quite different in that. He smiles. There are many copies of her. He'd find her even if there were a million.
Which is why he takes it upon himself to spend most of his off duty time in her cell, on a worn out couch he doesn't even want to know where it came from, guarding her sleep and hoping to see her heal one day from their terrible loss a few months ago. He has his duty and his friends and he can roam the Galactica freely so it's easier to push the thought aside that he should have been a father now. Sharon... Sharon only has walls of glass and silent Marines for company.
And a couch now. Okay, so he said he wouldn't think about it but to be honest, it's irking him, this not knowing who her benefactor was. In a corner of his mind he likes to think that he's still her only anchor on this ship; the only one who's not afraid of her and the only one who know there's no reason to be afraid of her. The only one who doesn't see a machine in her. There was something comforting about that thought and something... special.
He sighs. This is getting him nowhere. He should at least admit that it's killing him that he doesn't know who put this thing in here. He should know what's going on on this ship, shouldn't he? He should know about people carrying a piece of furniture of this size around the ship. Hell, he should know about people carrying a candle from one end of the ship to the other. He's not the Old Man's XO for nothing. Maybe he should ask Sharon after all. Maybe he should stop accepting that she still doesn't talk much. Maybe... maybe he should stop pushing thoughts about... "XO to the bridge! Repeat, XO to the bridge!"
Frak. And they woke up Sharon, too. She slowly gets up and blinks and he doesn't want to leave. She's so vulnerable when she wakes up, all the walls she hides behind down for at least a moment. He always wants to stay and protect her when she's like that. No, scratch that. He wants to protect her which is why he never likes leaving in a hurry and leaving her alone with those Marines again but there's a repeat call over the intercom and she reacts faster than him, throwing him one of those looks that say "Well, what are you waiting for, Agathon? Do your damn duty." and he bends down to give her a quick kiss to tell her he'll be back as soon as whatever caused them to call him is over.
Then he turns and leaves the cell through the doors one of the Marines opened in anticipatory obedience and he nods at the guy. To his surprise, though, the Marine doesn't simply nod back and salute. Instead he shuts the cell door and says, "By the way, sir... would you and the pris... Miss Valerii like a coffee table to go with the couch? We could organize one."
What the. Did the Marine just... did he just admit that he... that they... He just raises his eyebrows, trying to keep up an air of omniscience, just like a good XO would. "Not if "organize" means "steal", Corporal."
If the Marine was just mortally offended by his quip, he doesn't show it. Good for him. "The thought hadn't occurred to us yet, sir." Wow. A Marine with a sense of humor. And Sharon suddenly looking very interested. And... amused? Is that what he can see a faint hint of in her face? Wow.
"Pleased to hear it. Anyway... carry on, Corporal." He'd love to stay here and watch Sharon's face because it feels so good to see her look different than serious and suffering but they just called again and he damn well hopes it's something serious. Otherwise, he'll ask the Marines to requisition whatever they want to put in Sharon's cell next. Actually, he thinks grinning as he jogs down the corridor to the CIC, he's got some ideas as to what that could be. Something... something that will make Sharon smile again. Something that will make her dream of pleasant things. Oh yes, he definitely has something in his mind for that.