Fic: Mortality
“You may sit,” Laura told the cylon woman. She watched as the tall blonde slowly and deliberately moved toward her, refusing to flinch at the skeptical grimaces of the guards whose guns tracked her movements as she sat beside their president on the couch. The woman radiated a sense of preternatural calm that Laura found strangely soothing. She was quite unlike her sister they had held in the brig all these months, the differences going far beyond the softer hair and dress of this Six.
“Thank you,” Natalie answered as she settled herself.
Laura nodded and then quickly got down to business. “I want you to address our Quorum.”
“So they are not comfortable with our alliance?”
“They need reassurances. To understand why you would offer us this chance to destroy resurrection,” Laura explained, trying to mask her own unease. She did not like admitting that she did not fully understand it herself despite having committed everything they had left to this gambit.
“They are not the only ones that need reassurances are they? You still harbor doubts as to our sincerity?”
“It is my job to have doubts.”
“I thought it was the job of a leader to have none,” Natalie offered earnestly.
“Then you have not been a leader very long,” Laura replied with a quirk of her brow.
The cylon woman smiled and nodded her head. “I am pleased to know that I am a better leader than I had realized.”
Laura smiled ever so slightly in return. She was beginning to realize that she had underestimated this machine, starting with the fact that it was getting a great deal harder to view the tall blonde as a machine at all. It was unnerving not to be certain if that was a good or bad thing. Add it to the long list of current frustrations.
“You want me to allay your fears?” Natalie asked.
“Yes.”
“Well then I can say simply that I envied you humans your fears. I always did. Until now. Now I am afraid for my life. And it feels wonderful. So much to learn. To accomplish. To feel. All before my time ends, because now it will end. At last I am alive.” Her voice was quiet and measured as she spoke and yet there was something almost rhapsodic in her tone.
Natalie watched the shadows creep across the older woman’s pallid visage. After several moments of silence, she continued, curious. “Do you not feel this? As your life ebbs away does it not make you want to live it more?”
Still Laura said nothing. She did not know what to say. It had never even occurred to her to think of her death in these terms. So much life left to be had? Perhaps. But no time or energy left to live it. The young woman, if she was truly meant to be a great leader, would come to understand this sacrifice. For them there were some things that simply could never be. Of course, some resisted this truth even though they knew better. That only made things harder, and Laura was tired of hard. Frankly, she was tired of it all.
“May I see?” Natalie asked, nodding almost imperceptibly toward the dark, artificial strands that the president wore like a crown of thorns.
Laura regarded the cylon leader for a long moment. “Leave us,” she finally ordered the guards.
“Madame President,” one of them began in protest, but Laura held up a hand to silence him.
“It will be okay. I am in no danger,” she reassured them, glancing at the woman seated beside her. Natalie nodded her assent to these words as Laura pointed for the guards to leave. “Close the door behind you.”
As the hatch clanged shut, Laura turned back toward her fellow leader, searching the young woman’s eyes. They regarded her in return with a sort of reverence that had always made her uncomfortable when she’d seen such a gaze directed at her in the past. But now something inside her welcomed it. Slowly, eyes still locked, she reached up.
She did not understand fully what compelled her to remove her wig. Perhaps it was simply that this was her one chance to be seen with curiosity rather than pity or pain. And as she lifted it from her head she felt suddenly light. No shame. No frustration. No regret for pasts or futures that were now only dreams. Just calm. And a flash of something that felt nearly like freedom … like life. At least, that is what she saw in Natalie’s eyes. To this woman she was a revelation. So very strange … and yet strangely good.
Natalie raised her hand from her lap, reaching tentatively toward Laura’s bald skull, smiling slightly to signal that she meant no harm. “May I touch?” she asked quietly, her hand already nearly touching skin.
Laura nodded her permission and then shivered slightly at the sensation of the cylon’s fingers skating across her bare scalp. She had half expected her fingers to be cold and heavy against her skin. The touch of a machine. But Natalie’s fingers were warm and her caress gentle. Far more so than Ishay’s clinical touch when the medic had shaved away the last stubborn wisps of hair for her, or Tory’s pragmatic assistance when she was fitted for her wig. They were the only others beside herself that had ever touched her scalp until now. That had been by design. She did not like to be seen this way. Even by those closest to her. Especially by those closest to her.
But as she watched the woman’s smile broaden and her eyes brighten once more in wonderment, she felt none of her past reticence. What she felt instead was relief, relief to be seen as she truly was, a dying woman, and to be thought beautiful for it. Most could see her only as an object, beautiful to them now because of a prophesy of death and deliverance. Though there was one that saw the woman but could not see the dying. In truth, that was an even heavier burden to bear.
Natalie drew her fingers down from Laura’s scalp, tracing the hollow of her cheek before lightly grasping her chin. “Beautiful,” she said simply before slowly leaning forward.
Laura watched the woman as she came closer, realizing her intention and shocked to find that she did not mind it.
“May I?” the tall blonde breathed quietly, and Laura closed her eyes in welcome as Natalie’s lips gently brushed her own.
She could tell herself that they were sealing this alliance with a kiss. Perhaps that would make this moment something less than strange. But that was not the peace she was seeking in this moment. She could be at least that honest with herself as she felt the softness of Natalie’s lips on her own and tasted her sweetness on her tongue. Right now she wanted to be beautiful, to be wanted, to be awake. And for a moment she let herself be hungry for all those things, knowing that they came from this woman with no strings and no regrets. For those were two things she simply did not have the strength to carry anymore.
But she gave herself only a moment. A kiss could not change the reality that there was still so much left to do and so little time to do it. As she pulled away, Natalie smiled at her.
“Thank you,” the cylon said simply.
“You’re welcome,” Laura replied, quickly swallowing away her own smile and reapplying the mask of leadership, before she heard a loud knock at the hatch. She barely had her wig back on before the door opened and Bill strode in flanked by her guards. He had not waited to be granted admittance, and his eyes showed his anger that she had been left unprotected. That was okay. At least they were not looking at her with their usual sadness. She could handle his displeasure. In fact, she almost welcomed it. It made things easier.
“I was just receiving assurances that our new allies’ desire for mortality was sincere,” Laura explained as Bill crossed over to the couch where they sat. It was nothing less than the truth, even if not so much as one bit more. For ‘more’ was simply a luxury she knew she could never have.