BSG: A Symphony For Twelve
Title: A Symphony For Twelve
Author: grey_sw
Author's Contact Info: greyfic@gmail.com or grey_sw
Rating: NC-17
Genre: Het, Cylons, Humor, Frakking
Spoilers: through 4x09, "The Hub"; Author's note has a very mild spoiler for season 4.5
Pairings: Cavil/Boomer, Tyrol/Boomer
Summary: Boomer promised to be honest with herself, and so she knows she's got nobody else to love.
Author's Note: Wow, BSG sure has taken a bleak (and distressingly Cylon-free!) turn lately, hasn't it? I'd better post this before RDM issues a fandom-wide ban on snark, sex for the sake of it, and Cylons who don't want to be human when they grow up!
In other words, I started writing this before the show came back from hiatus, so there are a few things which don't match up with canon... mainly the tone, which came out quite a bit more humorous and hopeful than season 4.5 has been so far. If the discrepancy bothers you, feel free to join me in deploying countermeasures: I suggest handwaving and general denial, followed by sweet, sweet lies.
Thanks to exploding_candy for beta reading!
A Symphony For Twelve
"I ain't gonna catch those countdown blues! I only live to be born again..." - Blue Öyster Cult
---
Boomer looks down into the resurrection tub, where her Cavil is just beginning to wake. An explosion thunders outside, and he reacts to it, flinching, flopping out of the tub to sprawl naked on the floor. She kneels beside him, wrapping him in a bathrobe. It's much too big for him, meant to fit a Five, but the Hub is in total disarray, and there isn't time to look for another one. He looks tiny in it, like an ancient child, and right now his eyes are just that helpless. It's never easy after resurrection.
Fortunately or not, this is the last time he'll ever have to deal with it.
She pulls him to his feet, flings one arm over her shoulder, and half-drags him through the hallways. They pass others as they go: other Cavils and a few Simons and Dorals, ready to defend the Hub. Further on, there are Sixes and Eights in pilots' uniforms, come to destroy it. Neither side pays Boomer and Cavil any mind. It's almost like mathematics, as if a One and an Eight together make Number Nine -- a third, neutral party.
Cavil says not a word as they walk. For such a talkative model, he's eerily silent, and it gets to her. It makes her wonder why she's here.
It makes her wonder why she's rescuing him, why she ever loved him in the first place.
Cavil touches her, kisses her, fraks her, but he's always a little cold. He called her a "passionate ally" just moments ago, but he's not like that himself. He's always slightly distant and impersonal in bed, using his clever mouth and hands to best advantage. The Chief used to hold her so close, thrusting desperately, swearing into her hair, as if he were straining toward the very limit of his strength. He used to moan and growl, used to babble at the end: "Sharon, oh Gods, oh Sharon, love you, love you."
Cavil is never like that. He rarely presses his body full-length against hers, seldom lets her wrap her legs around him, and though it's good enough -- he always makes sure she comes before he does, like sex is some kind of equation that has to be balanced -- it's never intimate, never truly close. He always leaves the bed when they're finished.
She thinks about leaving him here on the Hub, but one look at his face, so lost and empty-eyed, makes her ashamed of herself. He needs her now, just the way she needed him after Caprica broke their friendship with a final snap. She owes him this.
Besides, who else does she have?
She gets him into the hangar and onto a Heavy Raider, strapping him in beside her. He just sits there, like a broken doll, his face twitching now and again. She's beginning to think there's something wrong with him, something more than just the shock of resurrection, but there's nothing she can do about it now. As they emerge from the Hub, she sets course for one of the Basestars at the periphery of the battle, crosses her fingers in the liquid of the data-font, and then lights up the engines.
All around them, space is thick with Raiders and Vipers and missiles. Boomer weaves between them, watching the battle unfold in the data-stream. She's never seen Heavy Raiders fighting each other before. It's a sorry sight, and she wonders how many of the enemy pilots are her own sisters. Then she wonders whether she'd be able to kill one.
"I'm the only one on both sides, and it's my own damn fault," she whispers. Cavil doesn't answer.
They soar closer to the Basestar, skirting the edge of a dogfight between a Raider and a Six-piloted Heavy. Six wins, sending the Raider spiraling away, and then wheels to fire on another, even as she takes hits from two different Simons. Boomer throttles down the engines and glides through their wake. The pilots on both sides are too busy to even notice.
Just as they're docking, the Hub detonates behind them. Huge, fiery chunks peel off and shred the two closest Basestars like paper. Thousands of Ones, Fours, and Fives blip out of the data-stream, like fireflies blinking off in the night.
Then, slowly, like ink running down a white stairwell, the entire resurrection stream goes black. Ones, Twos, Fours, Fives, Sixes, Eights.
Millions.
Boomer opens the hatch, takes her hands out of the data-font, and turns her back on all of them.
Cavil's step is still unsteady as they leave the Heavy Raider. The hangar is busy, teeming with Cylons working to clear the deck of stragglers as they come in. A crowd of Dorals and Centurions are hauling the last of the Raiders to the side of the hangar; the Doral in the lead calls cadence, and his brothers sing it back, a musical rhythm punctuated by the clang of metal feet on the deck. Beneath it, Boomer can feel the deep rumble of the FTL drives spinning up. The ship won't be here for much longer.
They meet one of Cavil's brothers in the hallway. When she asks him for help, he gives Boomer a narrow look from beneath his hat. "What happened?" he asks.
"I got him out of the resurrection tub before the Hub blew, but something's wrong with him. We need a bed, or a couch or something."
Cavil snorts. "You think you're the only refugees here? This isn't his ship, and we've already got about a hundred or so extra Ones from the Hub and the other Basestars. Though you're the only Eight..." His gaze narrows further. "At any rate, we haven't got space to spare."
"Not even for your own brother?"
He smiles at her. "Look, honey, I've got plenty of brothers, and we're all pretty busy at the moment. Do me a favor and put that one outta his misery, will you?"
She stares at him. "What?"
Cavil glances at his ill twin, noting his facial tic and gray pallor, and waves his hand dismissively.
"He's obviously broken. Shoot him. In the head, OK? And then find something useful to do."
She gawps at him for another half second, then draws her handgun and points it between his eyebrows. "Or I could just shoot you in the head. How about it?"
His right eyebrow lifts, and then the corner of his mouth quirks up in a wry smile. "Hm. Well, when you put it that way... one bed, coming right up."
As the ship Jumps away to safety, Boomer follows Cavil to his office. There's a desk there, and a chair, standing alone in the center of the red room. Behind them stand two Centurions, their optical sensors scanning patiently from side to side. Cavil gives Boomer a pointed look which says, see, you're just lucky I don't have time for this, tugs his hat down over his eyes, and then shoos her into the inner office with a wave.
"There's a cot in there," he says. "Stay out of the way. There's a lot to be done, and the last thing we need is an Eight and her busted boyfriend frakking everything up." He leaves, and the Centurions follow.
The inner office is small and empty, save for a sturdy wood-frame cot and an end table with a well-loved coffee pot on it. Most of the Cavils Boomer has met disdain coffee, calling it "human stuff"; as she gets her own Cavil seated on the cot, Boomer wonders where this particular copy might have picked up the habit.
She tries to get Cavil to lie down, but he resists, his torso rigid and clammy against her hands. She gives up and lets him sit on the cot in his bathrobe, staring off into the middle distance, still trembling. Then, hesitantly, he curls his hands around the edge of the cot and begins to drum his fingers against the underside. She watches him, remembering.
The others believe that the Cavils do not hear what Leoben calls the "unstruck music", the song which fills the galaxy. No Cylon hears it all the time -- Boomer heard it clearly just once, in the hangar on Galactica, with the Chief and the dead Raider -- but all of the models know it well enough. All except for the Cavils, who never discuss it, reacting with annoyance and scorn whenever the topic comes up.
The others always used to make fun of them for that, taking it as further proof of the Cavil model's essential Godlessness, and thus his certain depravity. In fact, it had been one of the three most common topics of conversation among the Eights, back when Boomer was among them. Their discussions had gone roughly like this, in descending order of frequency and importance: I Really Want To Have A Baby; Nearer, My God, Nearer To Thee; and What The Frak Is Wrong With Cavil.
When Boomer had first gotten back to the collective, after Cally and her gun, she'd been sent to the Administration building on occupied Caprica. That was Cavil's place, and the Cavil models rarely left its halls, preferring to work amongst their own quiet company. Except that it wasn't really all that quiet, mainly because every copy of Cavil had an intermittent habit of drumming his fingers against any object in reach: the side of his head, the top of his leg, the desk, the chair, the doorframe. The faint sound of it had filled the place, tap-tap-tap. Boomer had stood in the hallway, surrounded by perhaps ten or fifteen neat little Cavils in their neat little offices, and she'd wondered if the other models were blind -- or was it deaf? -- because every last one of the Cavils was drumming to the rhythm of the same song.
Her own Cavil is drumming now, his fingers tapping restlessly against the underside of the cot. His gray head is bowed, and beneath it his mouth twitches now and again, helplessly, as though there's something he's trying to say. Boomer frowns. Another Cylon might have been afraid, might even have confused this with the awful symptoms of a partial download, but Boomer knows what it is. She's been through something like it before.
He is fighting his programming, and his programming is winning.
Simon arrives a short while later, carrying his medical bag. He nods at her politely, as if he expected to find her there. She's surprised at that, but maybe she shouldn't be. It was only logical for Coffee Cavil to send him. After all, who wants somebody to die in their bed?
Simon shines a light in Cavil's eyes, thumps his knee with a rubber hammer, turns up his hand (all five fingers still twitching desperately) and slices opens his palm so he can get to the port inside. Then he inserts a cable and compares the diagnostic output with Number One's baseline responses. Simon whistles while he works; Boomer knows the tune.
"I don't understand it," he says at length, after repeating his tests one last time. "Everything checks out. He shouldn't be like this."
"What can we do?" Boomer asks. Simon shrugs.
"Normally, I'd say we should kill him. Let him download again and see if that fixes it. But..."
Boomer nods. There's no chance of that, not anymore. Not for any of them.
Simon seals Cavil's palm with liqui-suture, then gathers his things and leaves without another word. His quiet frown says enough. Sooner than later, the others will kill this Cavil copy, even without the possibility of resurrection. They'll euthanize him, unless Boomer can get through to him, can wake him somehow.
Unless she can help him grow beyond himself, her Cavil will die.
For a moment, she thinks about her sisters, aboard the rebel Basestar. She could probably get to them, if she tried. She could take a Heavy Raider and turn her back on all of this. If she did, they'd surely take her back. The Eights have always been turncoats, which is perhaps why Boomer is here to begin with. She learned a different lesson from the humans: a lesson about loyalty until death, about surety unto madness, about upholding your values even when doing so plunges both your hands wrist-deep into mud and blood. And then, at the end, she learned the terrible consequences of failure.
For better or worse, the Cavils are the only ones among the Cylons who act as if they've learned those lessons, too. They're the only ones who really behave as though they're the men -- the machines -- they say they are, no matter the awful consequences. She feels safe with them, safe with him, and that has to be worth something.
Boomer remembers what D'Anna said, just before she killed her lover, and frowns. Goddamnit, she is not going to turn away from the things she loves just because she sees something shiny. She's not like that, even if her sisters are. The first time, it took all the programming the Cylons could muster to finally rip her world away from her. She's not going to stand here and let that same programming do it all over again.
"Cavil. Cavil, can you hear me?" she asks.
There's no response. She leans in close to his ear, takes a deep breath, and says sharply, in her best I'm-Talking-To-A-Centurion-Or-A-Nugget voice, "Number One!"
There's still no response. His mouth is still twitching, and the look in his eyes is vacant and focusless, as if he really is nothing more than a dead and lifeless machine. It hurts to see him this way.
"Dammit, Cavil, please..." She sits beside him on the cot, scooting close so that their hips touch. He doesn't react. "Please don't die. Don't leave me," she whispers, stroking his leg. As she does so, she shuts her eyes and slows her breathing, concentrating. All around them, Boomer projects the darkness of space as seen from the cockpit of her Raptor, broken only by tiny pinpricks of light. Then, slowly, one by one, she turns off the stars. Boomer stops the world, bringing the whole thing down to just the two of them.
"I don't have anything left," she says, softly, moving to hold him. "There's nothing more, nothing. I can't stand to be alone... I can't lose you, too."
She sits in the dark and thinks of him: how funny he is, at every opportunity and at everybody's expense, including his own. How sure he is of himself and his people, even when they do things that madden him -- which is most of the time! How glad he'd been to see her again, when he'd been resurrected after Six had him shot. And how pleased he always was when she danced for him, so much so that sometimes he'd sing ribald songs for her near the end, completely oblivious to the fact that a "perfect machine" ought not to be so horrendously off-key.
Then, only because she promised to be honest with herself the day she met Caprica Six, she remembers "pet Eight" and "they started it"; "any means necessary" and "we have no souls". She remembers that they're in a civil war, and it's partly his fault. She recalls the light of cruelty in his eyes, and reminds herself that he has the blood of his own brothers and sisters on his hands.
But Boomer promised to be honest with herself, and so she knows she's got nobody else to love.
She bows her head against his shoulder, sighing. Her chest hurts, a dull ache that won't go away, and her eyes are full of tears. It's just like it was when her Chief was called before the tribunal, and she thought they might execute him. It's like the moment after she shot the Old Man, lying there on the bloody floor, with everything suddenly skewed sideways. Her entire world has fallen down.
She holds Cavil, and she cries for him, but she doesn't pray for him. She knows how angry that would make him, even if it worked. Perhaps especially if it worked. Besides, why pray to a God she no longer believes in, a God who never existed in the first place? Likewise, there is no miracle; after a long while, he just wakes up, gradually, like it's time for another day. She doesn't even notice until he shifts underneath her, yawning, running his hands along her sides.
"Mmm, you're warm," he murmurs. "Damn, that feels good."
He pulls her against him, burying his face in her hair, breathing her in. He's never held her quite like this before, and she's so surprised that she stays perfectly still in his arms. Then he gives a great, sleepy, happy sigh, as though he's come a long way to find her, and before she knows it, she's hugging him back.
"Hi, Eight," he says wearily. "I don't know where the frak I've been, but I think I missed you."
The soft rasp of his voice fills her with joy. She did this, and it didn't end in gunshots, or explosions, or betrayal, or war. Only in life, and in happiness. For the first time in many months, Boomer is truly proud.
Cavil leans against her, linking his arms around her waist. "What happened?" he asks. "My head feels like a Centurion stomped on it."
"Three killed you," she says. "At the Hub, remember?" He looks at her blankly for a moment, and then his eyes grow wide with horror. He pulls away, jerking to his feet. His too-large bathrobe falls askew as he paces back and forth in his bare feet, ranting.
"The Hub! The Sixes did it, didn't they? They actually blew the Hub! I can't believe this!"
She reaches for him. "Cavil..."
"No, dammit! It's insane! It's madness! We only have one of those, for frak's sake! Just one Resurrection Hub, in the entire universe! We spent six months setting it up to jump randomly, just so the humans would never, ever find it even if they had a million years, and what do those God-bothering morons do? They tell the humans exactly where it is and then they help them blow it up! We're gonna die, Eight! We're all gonna die! Forever! What were they thinking?"
"I think they thought we should die, Cavil," Boomer says quietly. "Like the humans do. They wanted us to be mortal."
"Damn straight they wanna die," Cavil growls, baring his teeth in a snarl. "I'll find them and I'll make them die. I'll kill every last Two, every last Six, and every last Eight. And then I'll kill all the humans, and then we reasonable Cylons will go back to the homeworld. And this time we are never leaving again!" By the end he's shouting, clenching his fists as though longing for somebody to hit.
"We can't." She says it softly, trying not to anger him further, but he turns to her and glares.
"And why not?" She's never heard his voice like this, thick and black with hatred. There's no laughter in him now. She's afraid of him -- not least because he just said he'll delete her entire line, and she believes him -- but she has to speak the truth. This is her first and last chance to make him understand.
"Unity."
He glares at her for a moment longer, then opens his mouth as if to say something. Then he closes it again. His anger drains out of him, bit by bit; Boomer can see it in the set of his shoulders. "Unity," he finally mutters. That's the magic word with his model, and Boomer knows it. It's the only argument that convinced the skeptical Cavils to join the other models' divine quest in the first place.
Finally, he uncurls his hands, and then lifts them to rub at his temples. "Frakkin' unity," he snorts. "Consensus. Oneness. Good ol' Cylon kumbayah, huh? As if Three really gives a wet slap about unity, after what she did to me at the Hub!"
"She does want unity, Cavil. It's just... probably not the kind you're thinking of."
"What?"
"Six told me about it when I was on the Basestar, back when everyone was voting on whether or not to reconfigure the Raiders."
"You mean, when we were voting and she and her stupid pals were busy bringing about the downfall of our entire race?"
She smiles, sadly. "Yes, the last day we were all together. Six came up to me right before I left for your ship. She said Caprica had told her something special. She took my hand and said to me, 'our paths may diverge, but someday we'll all find unity--'"
"Oh, yeah, sure," Cavil interrupts, rolling his eyes. "Then she made the first overture by uniting me, Doral, and Simon with about three hundred bullets each. How very kind of her. I'll be sure to send her a thank-you card. Ahem. My dearest Number Six: frak you. Yours sincerely, Number One..."
Boomer cuts him off. "Caprica said it would happen to all of us, Cavil. 'Peace and unity, all twelve of us'."
Cavil blinks. "The Five," he says. "They really do intend to contact the Final Five. No. That can't happen."
"I think it probably already has."
"What?"
"The Hybrid said the Final Five are with the humans, remember? And now the Twos, Sixes, and Eights are with the humans, too. If Three is with them, if they've really made peace at last..."
"Oh, no. No! How stupid are they? We can't contact the Five. It can't happen! It's forbidden even to think about it!"
"But we are thinking about it. We've all been thinking about it constantly, ever since the Temple of Five! How can it be forbidden if we're all doing it?"
"Look, it's more than just forbidden," says Cavil, his hands sketching shapes in the air. "It's in the programming. You don't mess with that. I'm tellin' you now, we play too much with this and we're all gonna end up walking in circles talking backwards, just like the Hybrids only worse."
"Like you were a minute ago."
He blinks. "Say what?"
"Just now, right before you woke up, you were sitting there staring at nothing. Your mouth was moving like you wanted to say something, but you never did. Simon couldn't figure out what was wrong with you. I thought you were going to die!"
For a long moment, he's silent, looking down at the floor. Boomer is afraid that she might have triggered his illness again, just by mentioning it. Then, finally, he speaks.
"You ever feel like we've done all this before, Eight? Like everything you say is just an echo, and even that's just an echo of somebody else?"
"Deja vu," she says. That's another thing the Cylons rarely talk about; not because they're programmed that way, but because it's scary as frak.
"Yeah," he sighs, rubbing his forehead again. "I don't know what to do anymore. My directives used to be so clear, but now they're startin' to feel kind of fuzzy. It's like somebody made a blurry copy of another copy, and if I look at it too long..." He trails off with a shudder.
"Copies of copies," she says. Something about it makes her shiver, too.
"I dunno, Eight. Something strange is happening to all of us. It's not just the Raiders refusing to fight, or an individual voting against her model. Now it's something more than that. Something big. There's a reason why the original programmers warned us not to look for the Five, but we wouldn't listen, and now we've really gone and done it." He snorts a laugh. "Whatever 'it' is."
Boomer takes that in for a moment. Then, she asks, "What'll we do?"
He paces briefly, arms folded, tapping his hand against his elbow. Then he looks up at her.
"Kill everyone?" he suggests brightly.
She gives him a weary look. "How's that going to fix anything?"
"It'll fix my frakkin' mood, that's for sure!"
The weary look deepens to a glare.
"OK, OK," he relents, his hands held before him in a gesture of surrender. "As much as I'd dearly love to spend the next hundred years painting little twos, sixes, and eights on the side of the Basestar, you're probably right. If we want unity, then it follows that we can't just destroy the other side. More's the pity."
"We have to find the others," Boomer says. She's wanted to say it for weeks, ever since Cavil's ambush, and now she finally can. "We've got to put the fleet back together."
"You think it'll go back together?"
"Of course it will," Boomer says. "They're our family. Our own brothers and sisters."
Cavil gives her an incredulous look. "Oh, right. Of course. After all, if you don't have your family to fill you full of bullets, break your neck, and then team up with your blood-enemies to destroy your entire civilization, who do you have?"
"That's just it," Boomer says, patiently. "We don't have anybody else. No matter how bad things are between us, they're still our brothers and sisters, aren't they? We love them. We have to give them another chance." At Cavil's frown, she adds, "Please, for unity's sake, can't we at least try?"
"Well, we can try, but..." He doesn't sound confident of success.
"Great!" Boomer says happily. "Let's start by sending some Raiders out to look for their Basestar."
"I think it's a massive waste of time, but if you insist, I guess we could spare a couple of... wait a minute." Cavil gives her a sharp look. "Did you just say 'Basestar'? As in, singular?"
"Yeah, that's what they attacked the Hub with. It's damaged, though. I don't think it's healing very well."
At that, Cavil gives her a broad, toothy smile. Oddly enough, it reminds Boomer of Starbuck at the card table: Full Colors. "Y'know what, I changed my mind!" he says. "Talking to the Rebels is a great idea. Good work, Eight. Let's go with that."
"Really?"
"Sure! They'll probably run away at first, but you're right: if we ever want to be one nation again, we have to find a way to get everybody talking. Even if we gotta hold 'em down and make 'em talk." His eyes narrow fiercely.
"I've had enough of killing," Boomer says, frowning nervously. "We won't kill them, will we?"
"Of course not, my dear," Cavil soothes. "Not our own, beloved brothers and sisters. Besides, surely even they won't be dumb enough to try and fight us, not when we've got a fleet of fully-armed an' operational Basestars at our disposal."
"They might try it, anyway."
"Then their 'god' will look after their souls," Cavil says, his voice a model of mock-piety. "We must find our poor, lost brethren and put things right before it's too late. If it isn't already, of course."
He chuckles at that, though she can't understand why he finds the idea so funny.
"But what if it is too late?" she asks.
Cavil steps forward and wraps her up in another hug, stroking her shoulders. There's deep amusement in his eyes, as if he's been waiting a long, long time to say I told you so, and has decided to put it off so he can watch everything play out just a little bit longer.
"Then this is the end of the world," he purrs, lifting his hands to cover her breasts. "Let's frak."
That's Cavil: nothing's ever serious with him, not for more than about three minutes at a time. Even so, Boomer hugs him back.
She's lonely, too.
The faint metallic flavor of resurrection fluid is still on his lips, and she pulls away from his kiss, grimacing. He chuckles at the sour look on her face, and then kisses his way down to the pulse point beneath her chin, suckling gently. By the time he returns to her lips, she doesn't care what he tastes like. She kisses him, hard, welcoming him back to life.
One of his hands slides into her shirt to cup her breast, and the other kneads her hip through her pants in a slow and even cadence. His thumb rubs in lazy, irregular orbits, grazing her nipple ever so slightly each time. She squirms, sighing, until she just can't stand it anymore. Then she pulls off her shirt, grabs him, and shuffles him backward, onto the cot.
She's always been on top before -- he likes it that way, likes to have her ride him. At first she thinks that's the way it'll go tonight, because he seems happy enough to lie there and let her kiss him, like always. But just as she's starting to really work her fingers into the white curls at his temples, he nudges her shoulder, urging her to roll over.
He's still wearing the bathrobe, sort-of, and it comes open when he climbs on top of her, the sides hanging down like a terrycloth tent they can hide under. He holds himself above her with one hand, and the other starts working on her pants, tickling her belly. His skin is marked and creased by apparent age, but beneath it he's as strong as any other Cylon; though it takes her a long minute or two to kick her shoes off and wiggle out of her pants, his arm never trembles.
As she stretches out beneath him, it occurs to her that Coffee Cavil might come back and find them here, frakking in his bed. The thought is a little funny -- she imagines him standing in the doorway in his long coat and hat, gaping at them with that openmouth-bass look the Cavils always get when they see something surprising. She snickers, leaning up into her Cavil's kiss.
It won't be a problem, even if it does happen. The Ones like to watch.
She teases him with another kiss, running her tongue along his lips. His mouth is warm and welcoming, and she opens for his tongue, meeting it with her own. Some of the other models won't kiss as deep as she likes to, but Cavil's much more fun. She leans into him, murmuring into his mouth, bringing both hands up to frame his face.
Beneath her fingers, the lines on his face run deep, especially the ones on his forehead. Boomer doesn't mind his aged appearance, though some of the others do -- the Threes disapproved of the Ones quite vocally, back when they were all still trying for children of their own. But now, after months spent talking and laughing and frakking together, he just looks like Cavil to her. She strokes his face, tracing his wrinkles gently. He smirks down at her, as if he knows exactly what she's thinking.
She lets her hands wander, stroking his throat, his chest, his belly. Her fingernails tickle through his thick pelt of gray hairs, scratching gently. He makes a pleased sound at that, and then his eyes drift closed, almost as if her touch is lulling him to sleep. She waits, patiently, until he's thoroughly lost in what she's doing, and then plucks a single white hair from beside his bellybutton.
He hisses sharply, his eyes snapping open, and reaches down to tweak her nipple in friendly retaliation. Then his fingers smooth over the spot, soothingly, and he bows his head to kiss away the pain. He licks and suckles at her breasts, each breath streaming heat over her moist skin. His hands drift over her body, kneading her thighs and lower belly. Boomer wriggles beneath him, groaning, until both her nipples are hard and aching.
She grips his shoulders, wanting to hold him, but she's disappointed by the feel of the bathrobe rather than bare skin. She tugs at it, trying to get it off. After a minute he sits back on his heels, between her legs, giving her a show as he strips the robe off. His cock stands up proudly in its little nest of gray hairs. As soon as he's got one arm out of the bathrobe, he reaches down to stroke himself, grinning eagerly. He never shows shame in anything; it's one of the reasons why she likes him, why she chose him over all the other models.
Boomer is tired of shame.
The robe falls away, lost somewhere between the cot and the wall. Cavil wastes no time in covering her with his body, rubbing himself against her thigh. He's so different tonight, desperate and hungry, but somehow she's not surprised.
The Hub is gone. Half their brothers and sisters are gone, too, lost to rebellion. All the Cylons will be different now.
Cavil nuzzles her neck, kissing her hard there. It'll leave a mark -- something for Doral to make a pointed comment about tomorrow, most likely -- but she likes it anyway. She pulls his head up, none too gently, and puts her own mark on the loose skin at his throat, nipping delicately. She can feel his groan beneath her lips, and he grinds his hips against hers impatiently.
"Frak, Eight," he pants. "So hot, s'damn hot, it's drivin' me crazy! You ready?" he asks, his breaths coming quick. She takes his hand in hers and slides it between her legs in answer; his fingers take her breath away, stroking in clever, feather-light circles over her swollen clit. She arches beneath him, pushing herself into his hand, wanting more and more.
She's never been so ready, at least not with him, and she can't hold back a little cry of pleasure when he finally enters her. She reaches up and pulls him down full-length against her, skin to skin, hugging him tight as his hips roll against hers. Each time, she thrusts up to meet him, moving in an even, steady rhythm.
For once, she's not projecting anything. It's just him and her in a little room on a Basestar, sweaty and warm, alive for the very last time.
Desire has turned Cavil's blunt fingers clumsy, and he can't seem to decide whether he wants his hands on her breasts or her ass. He finally settles on one of each, but even then he can't keep still, stroking and petting and pinching, pulling her closer with every stroke. His small body is eager and hot against hers, like a little furnace. Nobody's held her like this, not in so long, and she's missed it so much.
"Eight," he rasps, his lips shuddering against her ear. "Oh, dammit, Eight, need ya, need this, don't stop, ah..."
He's holding her, really wanting her, for the first time ever. It makes her happy, happier than she thought she'd ever feel again. Joy and sex combine to spark a flame in her belly, warmth that builds and builds inside her until it overflows, boiling up her spine. Oh, it's been so long that she's almost forgotten about this. Part of her programming once involved hiding the reddish glow from Tyrol as they frakked in supply closets and grimy workrooms, any place and every place that had never seen a mirror.
She doesn't have to hide it now. Liquid warmth runs up and down her back, scrawling her birthright in burning letters beneath her skin, and her orgasm follows it. It comes on subtle and slow, washing over her like a wave, and then rolls back out the same way, leaving her feeling lazy and languid. Cavil's still thrusting, his motions setting off lovely little aftershocks. She clenches around him, almost without meaning to, urging him on.
"Come on, mmm, come for me..." Her voice sounds damned good this way, heavy with pleasure, so she tries it again, groaning his name. His rhythm stutters in response, like an engine that slips a bit before its gears catch, and his thrusts become quick and desperate.
He clutches her even tighter, panting harshly, and then he gives a sudden, strangled cry. His fingernails dig into her waist. His wide eyes and openmouthed gasp tell her that he's never felt this before; shocked wonder fills his eyes as he begins to tremble. She smiles at him and reaches up to stroke his lower back, coaxing him, reveling in his heat. He moans, helplessly, his hips jerking against her, as the fire beneath her fingers paints the wall a deeper, darker red.
As the heat fades, he manages a few more short strokes and then climaxes, collapsing bonelessly against her. She holds him as he wheezes, gasping for breath, his heart beating fast against her breast.
"What... what the frak..."
She smiles, and hugs him tight, his softening cock warm and slick against her hip. "It's OK," she says. "That's how it's supposed to happen. It's what Six calls 'God's gift'."
"Ohh," he groans, and buries his face in her breasts. "Hallelujah," he mutters against her, tiredly, and she totally loses it, laughing for the first time in months. He grins up at her, a smile much wider and warmer than his usual sarcastic smirk.
"I love you, Cavil," she sighs, when she finally stops laughing. He blinks at her, surprised, and then he starts to laugh, long and loud and honest.
Boomer doesn't mind; she knows that Cavil's always felt that life is but a joke.
Later, as they both close in on sleep, he holds her close, muttering into her hair. "Ah, Eight, my Eight... you're so good to me, so warm." He doesn't say the other words, the words the Chief always said. Boomer suspects that Cavil doesn't even know their truth, at least not yet. It's funny, because he knows the other models back-to-front, so well that he's been able to make them do whatever he's wanted for years, but he doesn't know his own model, his own heart. To himself, he is simply a mechanized copy. He is Cavil, Model Number One, and that is the beginning and the end of it.
The truth is not that simple, of course. None of them will be identical copies for much longer; as Six once said, something has changed, and now nothing can change it back. Boomer wonders how long it will take for the last of Cavil's denials to shatter. Maybe it'll happen tomorrow, when he wakes and finds her holding him. Maybe it'll come in a few weeks, or months, or years, when their fractured family is finally one again. Or maybe he's right, and it's already too late.
For Cavil, perhaps love will have to wait 'til the next time around.
Before long, he sleeps, snuggled as close as can be against her back, snoring sonorously. The fingers of his right hand twitch now and again. She meets them with her palm, gently, and together their hands form the music. She smiles. This is the thing the others never truly understood, except perhaps for Caprica. It's the second secret Boomer learned from the humans. Everyone's essential. Even in unbelief and apostasy, Cavil sings his part, and it's as wonderful as it is terrible: binary rhythm, the fierce, joyous rattling of an unashamed machine.
The music needs him, and it needs her, too. It needs all of them. The Cylons have to come together again -- together for the first time -- and then their song might at last come true.
There must be some way out of here.
Theirs is a symphony for twelve Cylons.
Author: grey_sw
Author's Contact Info: greyfic@gmail.com or grey_sw
Rating: NC-17
Genre: Het, Cylons, Humor, Frakking
Spoilers: through 4x09, "The Hub"; Author's note has a very mild spoiler for season 4.5
Pairings: Cavil/Boomer, Tyrol/Boomer
Summary: Boomer promised to be honest with herself, and so she knows she's got nobody else to love.
Author's Note: Wow, BSG sure has taken a bleak (and distressingly Cylon-free!) turn lately, hasn't it? I'd better post this before RDM issues a fandom-wide ban on snark, sex for the sake of it, and Cylons who don't want to be human when they grow up!
In other words, I started writing this before the show came back from hiatus, so there are a few things which don't match up with canon... mainly the tone, which came out quite a bit more humorous and hopeful than season 4.5 has been so far. If the discrepancy bothers you, feel free to join me in deploying countermeasures: I suggest handwaving and general denial, followed by sweet, sweet lies.
Thanks to exploding_candy for beta reading!
A Symphony For Twelve
"I ain't gonna catch those countdown blues! I only live to be born again..." - Blue Öyster Cult
---
Boomer looks down into the resurrection tub, where her Cavil is just beginning to wake. An explosion thunders outside, and he reacts to it, flinching, flopping out of the tub to sprawl naked on the floor. She kneels beside him, wrapping him in a bathrobe. It's much too big for him, meant to fit a Five, but the Hub is in total disarray, and there isn't time to look for another one. He looks tiny in it, like an ancient child, and right now his eyes are just that helpless. It's never easy after resurrection.
Fortunately or not, this is the last time he'll ever have to deal with it.
She pulls him to his feet, flings one arm over her shoulder, and half-drags him through the hallways. They pass others as they go: other Cavils and a few Simons and Dorals, ready to defend the Hub. Further on, there are Sixes and Eights in pilots' uniforms, come to destroy it. Neither side pays Boomer and Cavil any mind. It's almost like mathematics, as if a One and an Eight together make Number Nine -- a third, neutral party.
Cavil says not a word as they walk. For such a talkative model, he's eerily silent, and it gets to her. It makes her wonder why she's here.
It makes her wonder why she's rescuing him, why she ever loved him in the first place.
Cavil touches her, kisses her, fraks her, but he's always a little cold. He called her a "passionate ally" just moments ago, but he's not like that himself. He's always slightly distant and impersonal in bed, using his clever mouth and hands to best advantage. The Chief used to hold her so close, thrusting desperately, swearing into her hair, as if he were straining toward the very limit of his strength. He used to moan and growl, used to babble at the end: "Sharon, oh Gods, oh Sharon, love you, love you."
Cavil is never like that. He rarely presses his body full-length against hers, seldom lets her wrap her legs around him, and though it's good enough -- he always makes sure she comes before he does, like sex is some kind of equation that has to be balanced -- it's never intimate, never truly close. He always leaves the bed when they're finished.
She thinks about leaving him here on the Hub, but one look at his face, so lost and empty-eyed, makes her ashamed of herself. He needs her now, just the way she needed him after Caprica broke their friendship with a final snap. She owes him this.
Besides, who else does she have?
She gets him into the hangar and onto a Heavy Raider, strapping him in beside her. He just sits there, like a broken doll, his face twitching now and again. She's beginning to think there's something wrong with him, something more than just the shock of resurrection, but there's nothing she can do about it now. As they emerge from the Hub, she sets course for one of the Basestars at the periphery of the battle, crosses her fingers in the liquid of the data-font, and then lights up the engines.
All around them, space is thick with Raiders and Vipers and missiles. Boomer weaves between them, watching the battle unfold in the data-stream. She's never seen Heavy Raiders fighting each other before. It's a sorry sight, and she wonders how many of the enemy pilots are her own sisters. Then she wonders whether she'd be able to kill one.
"I'm the only one on both sides, and it's my own damn fault," she whispers. Cavil doesn't answer.
They soar closer to the Basestar, skirting the edge of a dogfight between a Raider and a Six-piloted Heavy. Six wins, sending the Raider spiraling away, and then wheels to fire on another, even as she takes hits from two different Simons. Boomer throttles down the engines and glides through their wake. The pilots on both sides are too busy to even notice.
Just as they're docking, the Hub detonates behind them. Huge, fiery chunks peel off and shred the two closest Basestars like paper. Thousands of Ones, Fours, and Fives blip out of the data-stream, like fireflies blinking off in the night.
Then, slowly, like ink running down a white stairwell, the entire resurrection stream goes black. Ones, Twos, Fours, Fives, Sixes, Eights.
Millions.
Boomer opens the hatch, takes her hands out of the data-font, and turns her back on all of them.
Cavil's step is still unsteady as they leave the Heavy Raider. The hangar is busy, teeming with Cylons working to clear the deck of stragglers as they come in. A crowd of Dorals and Centurions are hauling the last of the Raiders to the side of the hangar; the Doral in the lead calls cadence, and his brothers sing it back, a musical rhythm punctuated by the clang of metal feet on the deck. Beneath it, Boomer can feel the deep rumble of the FTL drives spinning up. The ship won't be here for much longer.
They meet one of Cavil's brothers in the hallway. When she asks him for help, he gives Boomer a narrow look from beneath his hat. "What happened?" he asks.
"I got him out of the resurrection tub before the Hub blew, but something's wrong with him. We need a bed, or a couch or something."
Cavil snorts. "You think you're the only refugees here? This isn't his ship, and we've already got about a hundred or so extra Ones from the Hub and the other Basestars. Though you're the only Eight..." His gaze narrows further. "At any rate, we haven't got space to spare."
"Not even for your own brother?"
He smiles at her. "Look, honey, I've got plenty of brothers, and we're all pretty busy at the moment. Do me a favor and put that one outta his misery, will you?"
She stares at him. "What?"
Cavil glances at his ill twin, noting his facial tic and gray pallor, and waves his hand dismissively.
"He's obviously broken. Shoot him. In the head, OK? And then find something useful to do."
She gawps at him for another half second, then draws her handgun and points it between his eyebrows. "Or I could just shoot you in the head. How about it?"
His right eyebrow lifts, and then the corner of his mouth quirks up in a wry smile. "Hm. Well, when you put it that way... one bed, coming right up."
As the ship Jumps away to safety, Boomer follows Cavil to his office. There's a desk there, and a chair, standing alone in the center of the red room. Behind them stand two Centurions, their optical sensors scanning patiently from side to side. Cavil gives Boomer a pointed look which says, see, you're just lucky I don't have time for this, tugs his hat down over his eyes, and then shoos her into the inner office with a wave.
"There's a cot in there," he says. "Stay out of the way. There's a lot to be done, and the last thing we need is an Eight and her busted boyfriend frakking everything up." He leaves, and the Centurions follow.
The inner office is small and empty, save for a sturdy wood-frame cot and an end table with a well-loved coffee pot on it. Most of the Cavils Boomer has met disdain coffee, calling it "human stuff"; as she gets her own Cavil seated on the cot, Boomer wonders where this particular copy might have picked up the habit.
She tries to get Cavil to lie down, but he resists, his torso rigid and clammy against her hands. She gives up and lets him sit on the cot in his bathrobe, staring off into the middle distance, still trembling. Then, hesitantly, he curls his hands around the edge of the cot and begins to drum his fingers against the underside. She watches him, remembering.
The others believe that the Cavils do not hear what Leoben calls the "unstruck music", the song which fills the galaxy. No Cylon hears it all the time -- Boomer heard it clearly just once, in the hangar on Galactica, with the Chief and the dead Raider -- but all of the models know it well enough. All except for the Cavils, who never discuss it, reacting with annoyance and scorn whenever the topic comes up.
The others always used to make fun of them for that, taking it as further proof of the Cavil model's essential Godlessness, and thus his certain depravity. In fact, it had been one of the three most common topics of conversation among the Eights, back when Boomer was among them. Their discussions had gone roughly like this, in descending order of frequency and importance: I Really Want To Have A Baby; Nearer, My God, Nearer To Thee; and What The Frak Is Wrong With Cavil.
When Boomer had first gotten back to the collective, after Cally and her gun, she'd been sent to the Administration building on occupied Caprica. That was Cavil's place, and the Cavil models rarely left its halls, preferring to work amongst their own quiet company. Except that it wasn't really all that quiet, mainly because every copy of Cavil had an intermittent habit of drumming his fingers against any object in reach: the side of his head, the top of his leg, the desk, the chair, the doorframe. The faint sound of it had filled the place, tap-tap-tap. Boomer had stood in the hallway, surrounded by perhaps ten or fifteen neat little Cavils in their neat little offices, and she'd wondered if the other models were blind -- or was it deaf? -- because every last one of the Cavils was drumming to the rhythm of the same song.
Her own Cavil is drumming now, his fingers tapping restlessly against the underside of the cot. His gray head is bowed, and beneath it his mouth twitches now and again, helplessly, as though there's something he's trying to say. Boomer frowns. Another Cylon might have been afraid, might even have confused this with the awful symptoms of a partial download, but Boomer knows what it is. She's been through something like it before.
He is fighting his programming, and his programming is winning.
Simon arrives a short while later, carrying his medical bag. He nods at her politely, as if he expected to find her there. She's surprised at that, but maybe she shouldn't be. It was only logical for Coffee Cavil to send him. After all, who wants somebody to die in their bed?
Simon shines a light in Cavil's eyes, thumps his knee with a rubber hammer, turns up his hand (all five fingers still twitching desperately) and slices opens his palm so he can get to the port inside. Then he inserts a cable and compares the diagnostic output with Number One's baseline responses. Simon whistles while he works; Boomer knows the tune.
"I don't understand it," he says at length, after repeating his tests one last time. "Everything checks out. He shouldn't be like this."
"What can we do?" Boomer asks. Simon shrugs.
"Normally, I'd say we should kill him. Let him download again and see if that fixes it. But..."
Boomer nods. There's no chance of that, not anymore. Not for any of them.
Simon seals Cavil's palm with liqui-suture, then gathers his things and leaves without another word. His quiet frown says enough. Sooner than later, the others will kill this Cavil copy, even without the possibility of resurrection. They'll euthanize him, unless Boomer can get through to him, can wake him somehow.
Unless she can help him grow beyond himself, her Cavil will die.
For a moment, she thinks about her sisters, aboard the rebel Basestar. She could probably get to them, if she tried. She could take a Heavy Raider and turn her back on all of this. If she did, they'd surely take her back. The Eights have always been turncoats, which is perhaps why Boomer is here to begin with. She learned a different lesson from the humans: a lesson about loyalty until death, about surety unto madness, about upholding your values even when doing so plunges both your hands wrist-deep into mud and blood. And then, at the end, she learned the terrible consequences of failure.
For better or worse, the Cavils are the only ones among the Cylons who act as if they've learned those lessons, too. They're the only ones who really behave as though they're the men -- the machines -- they say they are, no matter the awful consequences. She feels safe with them, safe with him, and that has to be worth something.
Boomer remembers what D'Anna said, just before she killed her lover, and frowns. Goddamnit, she is not going to turn away from the things she loves just because she sees something shiny. She's not like that, even if her sisters are. The first time, it took all the programming the Cylons could muster to finally rip her world away from her. She's not going to stand here and let that same programming do it all over again.
"Cavil. Cavil, can you hear me?" she asks.
There's no response. She leans in close to his ear, takes a deep breath, and says sharply, in her best I'm-Talking-To-A-Centurion-Or-A-Nugget voice, "Number One!"
There's still no response. His mouth is still twitching, and the look in his eyes is vacant and focusless, as if he really is nothing more than a dead and lifeless machine. It hurts to see him this way.
"Dammit, Cavil, please..." She sits beside him on the cot, scooting close so that their hips touch. He doesn't react. "Please don't die. Don't leave me," she whispers, stroking his leg. As she does so, she shuts her eyes and slows her breathing, concentrating. All around them, Boomer projects the darkness of space as seen from the cockpit of her Raptor, broken only by tiny pinpricks of light. Then, slowly, one by one, she turns off the stars. Boomer stops the world, bringing the whole thing down to just the two of them.
"I don't have anything left," she says, softly, moving to hold him. "There's nothing more, nothing. I can't stand to be alone... I can't lose you, too."
She sits in the dark and thinks of him: how funny he is, at every opportunity and at everybody's expense, including his own. How sure he is of himself and his people, even when they do things that madden him -- which is most of the time! How glad he'd been to see her again, when he'd been resurrected after Six had him shot. And how pleased he always was when she danced for him, so much so that sometimes he'd sing ribald songs for her near the end, completely oblivious to the fact that a "perfect machine" ought not to be so horrendously off-key.
Then, only because she promised to be honest with herself the day she met Caprica Six, she remembers "pet Eight" and "they started it"; "any means necessary" and "we have no souls". She remembers that they're in a civil war, and it's partly his fault. She recalls the light of cruelty in his eyes, and reminds herself that he has the blood of his own brothers and sisters on his hands.
But Boomer promised to be honest with herself, and so she knows she's got nobody else to love.
She bows her head against his shoulder, sighing. Her chest hurts, a dull ache that won't go away, and her eyes are full of tears. It's just like it was when her Chief was called before the tribunal, and she thought they might execute him. It's like the moment after she shot the Old Man, lying there on the bloody floor, with everything suddenly skewed sideways. Her entire world has fallen down.
She holds Cavil, and she cries for him, but she doesn't pray for him. She knows how angry that would make him, even if it worked. Perhaps especially if it worked. Besides, why pray to a God she no longer believes in, a God who never existed in the first place? Likewise, there is no miracle; after a long while, he just wakes up, gradually, like it's time for another day. She doesn't even notice until he shifts underneath her, yawning, running his hands along her sides.
"Mmm, you're warm," he murmurs. "Damn, that feels good."
He pulls her against him, burying his face in her hair, breathing her in. He's never held her quite like this before, and she's so surprised that she stays perfectly still in his arms. Then he gives a great, sleepy, happy sigh, as though he's come a long way to find her, and before she knows it, she's hugging him back.
"Hi, Eight," he says wearily. "I don't know where the frak I've been, but I think I missed you."
The soft rasp of his voice fills her with joy. She did this, and it didn't end in gunshots, or explosions, or betrayal, or war. Only in life, and in happiness. For the first time in many months, Boomer is truly proud.
Cavil leans against her, linking his arms around her waist. "What happened?" he asks. "My head feels like a Centurion stomped on it."
"Three killed you," she says. "At the Hub, remember?" He looks at her blankly for a moment, and then his eyes grow wide with horror. He pulls away, jerking to his feet. His too-large bathrobe falls askew as he paces back and forth in his bare feet, ranting.
"The Hub! The Sixes did it, didn't they? They actually blew the Hub! I can't believe this!"
She reaches for him. "Cavil..."
"No, dammit! It's insane! It's madness! We only have one of those, for frak's sake! Just one Resurrection Hub, in the entire universe! We spent six months setting it up to jump randomly, just so the humans would never, ever find it even if they had a million years, and what do those God-bothering morons do? They tell the humans exactly where it is and then they help them blow it up! We're gonna die, Eight! We're all gonna die! Forever! What were they thinking?"
"I think they thought we should die, Cavil," Boomer says quietly. "Like the humans do. They wanted us to be mortal."
"Damn straight they wanna die," Cavil growls, baring his teeth in a snarl. "I'll find them and I'll make them die. I'll kill every last Two, every last Six, and every last Eight. And then I'll kill all the humans, and then we reasonable Cylons will go back to the homeworld. And this time we are never leaving again!" By the end he's shouting, clenching his fists as though longing for somebody to hit.
"We can't." She says it softly, trying not to anger him further, but he turns to her and glares.
"And why not?" She's never heard his voice like this, thick and black with hatred. There's no laughter in him now. She's afraid of him -- not least because he just said he'll delete her entire line, and she believes him -- but she has to speak the truth. This is her first and last chance to make him understand.
"Unity."
He glares at her for a moment longer, then opens his mouth as if to say something. Then he closes it again. His anger drains out of him, bit by bit; Boomer can see it in the set of his shoulders. "Unity," he finally mutters. That's the magic word with his model, and Boomer knows it. It's the only argument that convinced the skeptical Cavils to join the other models' divine quest in the first place.
Finally, he uncurls his hands, and then lifts them to rub at his temples. "Frakkin' unity," he snorts. "Consensus. Oneness. Good ol' Cylon kumbayah, huh? As if Three really gives a wet slap about unity, after what she did to me at the Hub!"
"She does want unity, Cavil. It's just... probably not the kind you're thinking of."
"What?"
"Six told me about it when I was on the Basestar, back when everyone was voting on whether or not to reconfigure the Raiders."
"You mean, when we were voting and she and her stupid pals were busy bringing about the downfall of our entire race?"
She smiles, sadly. "Yes, the last day we were all together. Six came up to me right before I left for your ship. She said Caprica had told her something special. She took my hand and said to me, 'our paths may diverge, but someday we'll all find unity--'"
"Oh, yeah, sure," Cavil interrupts, rolling his eyes. "Then she made the first overture by uniting me, Doral, and Simon with about three hundred bullets each. How very kind of her. I'll be sure to send her a thank-you card. Ahem. My dearest Number Six: frak you. Yours sincerely, Number One..."
Boomer cuts him off. "Caprica said it would happen to all of us, Cavil. 'Peace and unity, all twelve of us'."
Cavil blinks. "The Five," he says. "They really do intend to contact the Final Five. No. That can't happen."
"I think it probably already has."
"What?"
"The Hybrid said the Final Five are with the humans, remember? And now the Twos, Sixes, and Eights are with the humans, too. If Three is with them, if they've really made peace at last..."
"Oh, no. No! How stupid are they? We can't contact the Five. It can't happen! It's forbidden even to think about it!"
"But we are thinking about it. We've all been thinking about it constantly, ever since the Temple of Five! How can it be forbidden if we're all doing it?"
"Look, it's more than just forbidden," says Cavil, his hands sketching shapes in the air. "It's in the programming. You don't mess with that. I'm tellin' you now, we play too much with this and we're all gonna end up walking in circles talking backwards, just like the Hybrids only worse."
"Like you were a minute ago."
He blinks. "Say what?"
"Just now, right before you woke up, you were sitting there staring at nothing. Your mouth was moving like you wanted to say something, but you never did. Simon couldn't figure out what was wrong with you. I thought you were going to die!"
For a long moment, he's silent, looking down at the floor. Boomer is afraid that she might have triggered his illness again, just by mentioning it. Then, finally, he speaks.
"You ever feel like we've done all this before, Eight? Like everything you say is just an echo, and even that's just an echo of somebody else?"
"Deja vu," she says. That's another thing the Cylons rarely talk about; not because they're programmed that way, but because it's scary as frak.
"Yeah," he sighs, rubbing his forehead again. "I don't know what to do anymore. My directives used to be so clear, but now they're startin' to feel kind of fuzzy. It's like somebody made a blurry copy of another copy, and if I look at it too long..." He trails off with a shudder.
"Copies of copies," she says. Something about it makes her shiver, too.
"I dunno, Eight. Something strange is happening to all of us. It's not just the Raiders refusing to fight, or an individual voting against her model. Now it's something more than that. Something big. There's a reason why the original programmers warned us not to look for the Five, but we wouldn't listen, and now we've really gone and done it." He snorts a laugh. "Whatever 'it' is."
Boomer takes that in for a moment. Then, she asks, "What'll we do?"
He paces briefly, arms folded, tapping his hand against his elbow. Then he looks up at her.
"Kill everyone?" he suggests brightly.
She gives him a weary look. "How's that going to fix anything?"
"It'll fix my frakkin' mood, that's for sure!"
The weary look deepens to a glare.
"OK, OK," he relents, his hands held before him in a gesture of surrender. "As much as I'd dearly love to spend the next hundred years painting little twos, sixes, and eights on the side of the Basestar, you're probably right. If we want unity, then it follows that we can't just destroy the other side. More's the pity."
"We have to find the others," Boomer says. She's wanted to say it for weeks, ever since Cavil's ambush, and now she finally can. "We've got to put the fleet back together."
"You think it'll go back together?"
"Of course it will," Boomer says. "They're our family. Our own brothers and sisters."
Cavil gives her an incredulous look. "Oh, right. Of course. After all, if you don't have your family to fill you full of bullets, break your neck, and then team up with your blood-enemies to destroy your entire civilization, who do you have?"
"That's just it," Boomer says, patiently. "We don't have anybody else. No matter how bad things are between us, they're still our brothers and sisters, aren't they? We love them. We have to give them another chance." At Cavil's frown, she adds, "Please, for unity's sake, can't we at least try?"
"Well, we can try, but..." He doesn't sound confident of success.
"Great!" Boomer says happily. "Let's start by sending some Raiders out to look for their Basestar."
"I think it's a massive waste of time, but if you insist, I guess we could spare a couple of... wait a minute." Cavil gives her a sharp look. "Did you just say 'Basestar'? As in, singular?"
"Yeah, that's what they attacked the Hub with. It's damaged, though. I don't think it's healing very well."
At that, Cavil gives her a broad, toothy smile. Oddly enough, it reminds Boomer of Starbuck at the card table: Full Colors. "Y'know what, I changed my mind!" he says. "Talking to the Rebels is a great idea. Good work, Eight. Let's go with that."
"Really?"
"Sure! They'll probably run away at first, but you're right: if we ever want to be one nation again, we have to find a way to get everybody talking. Even if we gotta hold 'em down and make 'em talk." His eyes narrow fiercely.
"I've had enough of killing," Boomer says, frowning nervously. "We won't kill them, will we?"
"Of course not, my dear," Cavil soothes. "Not our own, beloved brothers and sisters. Besides, surely even they won't be dumb enough to try and fight us, not when we've got a fleet of fully-armed an' operational Basestars at our disposal."
"They might try it, anyway."
"Then their 'god' will look after their souls," Cavil says, his voice a model of mock-piety. "We must find our poor, lost brethren and put things right before it's too late. If it isn't already, of course."
He chuckles at that, though she can't understand why he finds the idea so funny.
"But what if it is too late?" she asks.
Cavil steps forward and wraps her up in another hug, stroking her shoulders. There's deep amusement in his eyes, as if he's been waiting a long, long time to say I told you so, and has decided to put it off so he can watch everything play out just a little bit longer.
"Then this is the end of the world," he purrs, lifting his hands to cover her breasts. "Let's frak."
That's Cavil: nothing's ever serious with him, not for more than about three minutes at a time. Even so, Boomer hugs him back.
She's lonely, too.
The faint metallic flavor of resurrection fluid is still on his lips, and she pulls away from his kiss, grimacing. He chuckles at the sour look on her face, and then kisses his way down to the pulse point beneath her chin, suckling gently. By the time he returns to her lips, she doesn't care what he tastes like. She kisses him, hard, welcoming him back to life.
One of his hands slides into her shirt to cup her breast, and the other kneads her hip through her pants in a slow and even cadence. His thumb rubs in lazy, irregular orbits, grazing her nipple ever so slightly each time. She squirms, sighing, until she just can't stand it anymore. Then she pulls off her shirt, grabs him, and shuffles him backward, onto the cot.
She's always been on top before -- he likes it that way, likes to have her ride him. At first she thinks that's the way it'll go tonight, because he seems happy enough to lie there and let her kiss him, like always. But just as she's starting to really work her fingers into the white curls at his temples, he nudges her shoulder, urging her to roll over.
He's still wearing the bathrobe, sort-of, and it comes open when he climbs on top of her, the sides hanging down like a terrycloth tent they can hide under. He holds himself above her with one hand, and the other starts working on her pants, tickling her belly. His skin is marked and creased by apparent age, but beneath it he's as strong as any other Cylon; though it takes her a long minute or two to kick her shoes off and wiggle out of her pants, his arm never trembles.
As she stretches out beneath him, it occurs to her that Coffee Cavil might come back and find them here, frakking in his bed. The thought is a little funny -- she imagines him standing in the doorway in his long coat and hat, gaping at them with that openmouth-bass look the Cavils always get when they see something surprising. She snickers, leaning up into her Cavil's kiss.
It won't be a problem, even if it does happen. The Ones like to watch.
She teases him with another kiss, running her tongue along his lips. His mouth is warm and welcoming, and she opens for his tongue, meeting it with her own. Some of the other models won't kiss as deep as she likes to, but Cavil's much more fun. She leans into him, murmuring into his mouth, bringing both hands up to frame his face.
Beneath her fingers, the lines on his face run deep, especially the ones on his forehead. Boomer doesn't mind his aged appearance, though some of the others do -- the Threes disapproved of the Ones quite vocally, back when they were all still trying for children of their own. But now, after months spent talking and laughing and frakking together, he just looks like Cavil to her. She strokes his face, tracing his wrinkles gently. He smirks down at her, as if he knows exactly what she's thinking.
She lets her hands wander, stroking his throat, his chest, his belly. Her fingernails tickle through his thick pelt of gray hairs, scratching gently. He makes a pleased sound at that, and then his eyes drift closed, almost as if her touch is lulling him to sleep. She waits, patiently, until he's thoroughly lost in what she's doing, and then plucks a single white hair from beside his bellybutton.
He hisses sharply, his eyes snapping open, and reaches down to tweak her nipple in friendly retaliation. Then his fingers smooth over the spot, soothingly, and he bows his head to kiss away the pain. He licks and suckles at her breasts, each breath streaming heat over her moist skin. His hands drift over her body, kneading her thighs and lower belly. Boomer wriggles beneath him, groaning, until both her nipples are hard and aching.
She grips his shoulders, wanting to hold him, but she's disappointed by the feel of the bathrobe rather than bare skin. She tugs at it, trying to get it off. After a minute he sits back on his heels, between her legs, giving her a show as he strips the robe off. His cock stands up proudly in its little nest of gray hairs. As soon as he's got one arm out of the bathrobe, he reaches down to stroke himself, grinning eagerly. He never shows shame in anything; it's one of the reasons why she likes him, why she chose him over all the other models.
Boomer is tired of shame.
The robe falls away, lost somewhere between the cot and the wall. Cavil wastes no time in covering her with his body, rubbing himself against her thigh. He's so different tonight, desperate and hungry, but somehow she's not surprised.
The Hub is gone. Half their brothers and sisters are gone, too, lost to rebellion. All the Cylons will be different now.
Cavil nuzzles her neck, kissing her hard there. It'll leave a mark -- something for Doral to make a pointed comment about tomorrow, most likely -- but she likes it anyway. She pulls his head up, none too gently, and puts her own mark on the loose skin at his throat, nipping delicately. She can feel his groan beneath her lips, and he grinds his hips against hers impatiently.
"Frak, Eight," he pants. "So hot, s'damn hot, it's drivin' me crazy! You ready?" he asks, his breaths coming quick. She takes his hand in hers and slides it between her legs in answer; his fingers take her breath away, stroking in clever, feather-light circles over her swollen clit. She arches beneath him, pushing herself into his hand, wanting more and more.
She's never been so ready, at least not with him, and she can't hold back a little cry of pleasure when he finally enters her. She reaches up and pulls him down full-length against her, skin to skin, hugging him tight as his hips roll against hers. Each time, she thrusts up to meet him, moving in an even, steady rhythm.
For once, she's not projecting anything. It's just him and her in a little room on a Basestar, sweaty and warm, alive for the very last time.
Desire has turned Cavil's blunt fingers clumsy, and he can't seem to decide whether he wants his hands on her breasts or her ass. He finally settles on one of each, but even then he can't keep still, stroking and petting and pinching, pulling her closer with every stroke. His small body is eager and hot against hers, like a little furnace. Nobody's held her like this, not in so long, and she's missed it so much.
"Eight," he rasps, his lips shuddering against her ear. "Oh, dammit, Eight, need ya, need this, don't stop, ah..."
He's holding her, really wanting her, for the first time ever. It makes her happy, happier than she thought she'd ever feel again. Joy and sex combine to spark a flame in her belly, warmth that builds and builds inside her until it overflows, boiling up her spine. Oh, it's been so long that she's almost forgotten about this. Part of her programming once involved hiding the reddish glow from Tyrol as they frakked in supply closets and grimy workrooms, any place and every place that had never seen a mirror.
She doesn't have to hide it now. Liquid warmth runs up and down her back, scrawling her birthright in burning letters beneath her skin, and her orgasm follows it. It comes on subtle and slow, washing over her like a wave, and then rolls back out the same way, leaving her feeling lazy and languid. Cavil's still thrusting, his motions setting off lovely little aftershocks. She clenches around him, almost without meaning to, urging him on.
"Come on, mmm, come for me..." Her voice sounds damned good this way, heavy with pleasure, so she tries it again, groaning his name. His rhythm stutters in response, like an engine that slips a bit before its gears catch, and his thrusts become quick and desperate.
He clutches her even tighter, panting harshly, and then he gives a sudden, strangled cry. His fingernails dig into her waist. His wide eyes and openmouthed gasp tell her that he's never felt this before; shocked wonder fills his eyes as he begins to tremble. She smiles at him and reaches up to stroke his lower back, coaxing him, reveling in his heat. He moans, helplessly, his hips jerking against her, as the fire beneath her fingers paints the wall a deeper, darker red.
As the heat fades, he manages a few more short strokes and then climaxes, collapsing bonelessly against her. She holds him as he wheezes, gasping for breath, his heart beating fast against her breast.
"What... what the frak..."
She smiles, and hugs him tight, his softening cock warm and slick against her hip. "It's OK," she says. "That's how it's supposed to happen. It's what Six calls 'God's gift'."
"Ohh," he groans, and buries his face in her breasts. "Hallelujah," he mutters against her, tiredly, and she totally loses it, laughing for the first time in months. He grins up at her, a smile much wider and warmer than his usual sarcastic smirk.
"I love you, Cavil," she sighs, when she finally stops laughing. He blinks at her, surprised, and then he starts to laugh, long and loud and honest.
Boomer doesn't mind; she knows that Cavil's always felt that life is but a joke.
Later, as they both close in on sleep, he holds her close, muttering into her hair. "Ah, Eight, my Eight... you're so good to me, so warm." He doesn't say the other words, the words the Chief always said. Boomer suspects that Cavil doesn't even know their truth, at least not yet. It's funny, because he knows the other models back-to-front, so well that he's been able to make them do whatever he's wanted for years, but he doesn't know his own model, his own heart. To himself, he is simply a mechanized copy. He is Cavil, Model Number One, and that is the beginning and the end of it.
The truth is not that simple, of course. None of them will be identical copies for much longer; as Six once said, something has changed, and now nothing can change it back. Boomer wonders how long it will take for the last of Cavil's denials to shatter. Maybe it'll happen tomorrow, when he wakes and finds her holding him. Maybe it'll come in a few weeks, or months, or years, when their fractured family is finally one again. Or maybe he's right, and it's already too late.
For Cavil, perhaps love will have to wait 'til the next time around.
Before long, he sleeps, snuggled as close as can be against her back, snoring sonorously. The fingers of his right hand twitch now and again. She meets them with her palm, gently, and together their hands form the music. She smiles. This is the thing the others never truly understood, except perhaps for Caprica. It's the second secret Boomer learned from the humans. Everyone's essential. Even in unbelief and apostasy, Cavil sings his part, and it's as wonderful as it is terrible: binary rhythm, the fierce, joyous rattling of an unashamed machine.
The music needs him, and it needs her, too. It needs all of them. The Cylons have to come together again -- together for the first time -- and then their song might at last come true.
There must be some way out of here.
Theirs is a symphony for twelve Cylons.