That One AU
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica
Summary: AU. Moments of tragedy as witnessed by other people.
Warnings: Suicide/assisted suicide, references to abortion and terrorist acts
Notes:
So.. yeah. I woke up a few days ago and the long and complicated back story to all of what's written here popped into my head. I didn't really want to write it all out, so I just decided to go with this. Now, for some reason or another, when I think about AU scenarios with Laura and Tom, if they had met when they were young, I just picture them having a pack of children. I don't even know why, and he's the only character I've ever paired her with where I see this happening. All the make up sex from the arguments, I guess. It's just a mental tick for me. The two of them would just have babies in my mind. I think a part of me wanted to write that. This also sort of turned into an exercise in a different kind of narrative. It was fun to structure the story this way, but I'm not sure if I'll ever want to write a longer piece like this. That would be challenging and more than a little frustrating.
I have this massive pet peeve about AUs, where if something drastic is altered, than nothing in the story past that moment would even remotely occur similarly to what happened in canon. There are a few small exceptions to that which I can see, and there's also the explanation that god is making everything happen anyway so peoples' choices really don't matter, which is just a little annoying when you stop and think about it. For me anyway.
I told that pet peeve to sit in a corner when I wrote this.
Anyway.. I sat down and made myself put this down because I had an idea, and I also wanted to see if I could make myself write something immediately after I got the idea rather than let it sit for months/years and do nothing with it. I at least succeeded on that front.
This story has no title because I couldn't find a reason to give it one.
-
Edward was the oldest, named after Laura's father. Then there was Sarah, and Joseph.
Bill stopped Tom's rambling list of the names of his children to tell him Joseph had been his father's name.
Then there was Marcus, Adelaide then Jamie.
Tom was barely been able to say Christopher's name.
Lydia was the youngest.
Edward, Joseph, Adelaide and Jamie were all married. Bill poured him another drink before he could list off their spouses names. He couldn't bring himself to force the man to shut up about his grandchildren though.
Sylvia, Thomas, Trinity, Horatio and Judy.
Judy was three. Her father had died today in an attack against a cylon mining operation, along with five other pilots. The mission had been a success.
Christopher was probably one of the last people in the universe who had so much of his family left alive. People who knew him, who could remember him. The Zarek family was so large it took several shuttle trips to get them all to one place, meaning they were spending the night on Galactica rather than keep a pilot awake through delta shift ferrying them back to their ship.
After Tom left, Bill stayed awake at his desk, staring at the old photo of himself and his sons.
-
It was totally stupid in her opinion, families should be kept together. But Seelix had drawn the short straw and gotten a shitty detail, not been asked her opinion. Some scientist somewhere had calculated that it was for the best. Children were being scattered amongst the ships, families separated in case a ship was destroyed and their valuable genetic diversity lost.
Not being able to live with your family though.. and Cloud Nine had space for this family, massive as it was.
She looked down to her clipboard and read out the names and the ships they were being relocated to. Joseph and Bianca Zarek and children, Adelaide and Chelsea Zarek and children, and Lydia Zarek were going to the Trident. Marcus Zarek, Jamie and Tiffany Zarek and children, were going to the Dawn Drake. Laura and Thomas Zarek were going to the Prixis.
Because someone had left her off the list, and it would get them a better billet, Judy went with her grandparents.
Seelix kept her eyes on the clipboard and tried not to watch the family splitting up their things.
-
Felix wasn't sure where he was supposed to look.
He couldn't stand the closed off expression on the Admiral's face, and the President's back was turned. He didn't feel like he had the right to avert his own eyes so completely from the scene.
“Lydia, baby, please.”
A garbled shout, and then the line went dead. The comm had to be slowly taken out of Laura Zarek's shaking fingers. Felix noticed most others in the CIC weren't sure where to look either. How did you respond to the mother of a terrorist currently holding members of your crew?
Abinell wouldn't let the Zarek girl back on when they reestablished contact.
With the attempt failed and no one able to spare her anytime at such a critical moment, Laura was taken into DC command and watched over by a communications officer. Felix could see her through the glass, arms tight around her fraying clothes. Tears rolled down her face and lights from the machines reflected off the trails they left.
-
Ishay had a scarf she wore around her head when she went out to the Prometheus. She didn't like the thought of others recognizing her on these trips. Plenty of Galactica's crew visited the market there, but buying contraband wasn't what she came for.
She didn't want word to get back to Cottle in regards to what she was doing. She wouldn't be able to take a lecture from him, or worse yet, encouragement. Ishay didn't want to get him involved, didn't want to invite trouble for him. He didn't need more cases like the Gemenese girl cropping up.
She wrapped the scarf tight around her head, hands shaking. The back room was quiet today.
It had been ever since Jamie gave his wife the overdose of morpha when Ishay just couldn't get the bleeding to stop.
-
There were no windows on their ship, and the shock wave hadn't hit them. It was hours before the captain acknowledged the reports on the wireless.
Emily hadn't gotten frantic like the others. There was no one left for her to worry over, and if the cylons came and blew them up too, well, there was no point screaming about it. They wouldn't even be able to see it coming. There was a group she kept an eye on though, the family that had been moved into the compartment next to hers. Quiet older couple. Quiet little girl.
She knew they had family within the fleet, they visited sometimes.
As the names of the ships that were destroyed when Cloud Nine exploded were read, she watched them. It wasn't hard to figure out.
They were alone now too.
-
“Mind if I have one?”
Sherman could hear crying in the tent behind them. It was always interesting in these situations, seeing which one would break down first. Which one would fall later.
He handed her a cigarette without comment. She had her own light.
Their granddaughter had been having problems since they first settled, but with the cold season, things had just gotten worse.
He knew it wouldn't be the last child lost to New Caprica's winter.
-
They were arguing. They were managing to do it quietly, but they were still arguing.
Saul had the Zareks on his list for a long time. They were some of the best candidates he could find. No one left and not young enough to be a potential loss on future generations. If he still bothered to plan for future generations. It would have been good to get both of them, but from the sound of things in the tent behind him, he would be lucky to get one.
Laura left without a glance spared for him, and Tom stepped out.
“Where?”
They hadn't hit the power plant yet, and Tom worked maintenance there. It was a good target.
-
“When was the last time you were vaccinated?”
“New Caprica.” At his startled look, she elaborated. “I worked with kids. They wanted to make sure I didn't give them anything.”
Michael froze, staring at the woman on his exam table and then back to the file he had. “You're Caprican.”
“Originally.”
“Unusual that you ended up here.”
“We all had to go somewhere, after.”
Somewhere. And she had just managed to get thrown into Dogsville. “I want to give you a vaccine.”
She rolled up her sleeve.
If only the rest of his patients were so easy to work with. He prepared the syringe from the package Cottle had given him.
A nurse poked her head into the curtained off area. “Dr. Robert?”
“I'll be right there.”
-
All Lee could hear was roaring. It was too dark and the water too turbulent for him to be able to see anything. He was going to die having chased after a woman. Life was hysterical sometimes. His body caught on something and he began flailing until he realized, he wasn't snagged, someone had grabbed him. Lee helped his savior by pushing against the banks when his feet finally touched land again.
He coughed and spluttered, staying on his back as his breathing slowly came back to him. “There- there was this woman- need to-”
“What did you lose?”
“-go back, have to- what?”
“What did you lose? I suppose it isn't any of my business, but you did lose something, right?”
Lee could only stare up at the man crouched next to him, trying to figure out what he was saying. “I didn't.. I didn't lose.. there was a woman. She got into the river, I tried-”
“To save her. It's alright.”
“You found her?”
The man sighed, rocking on his heels. “There isn't a woman to be found.”
“But-”
“You saw her, yes, I know. There isn't a woman to be found, because the lady who walked into that river did so more than a month ago.”
Lee tried to respond, but his mind was still jumbled from his tossing in the current.
“It's okay. You must be the tenth person to see her since it happened. I say it's because you lost something, but Greenwhich keeps insisting she's just trying to kill people. I think she's helping.”
“Helping?”
“Come back to the village with me son, we can hike back upriver and look for whatever gear you dropped in your haste to play hero later. At least, I hope you had gear out here, but stay a while if you've got something or not. Maybe you'll find whatever it is you lost.”
Lee let his head drop back to the ground, feeling more confused by the second. “I don't think that's possible.”
Summary: AU. Moments of tragedy as witnessed by other people.
Warnings: Suicide/assisted suicide, references to abortion and terrorist acts
Notes:
So.. yeah. I woke up a few days ago and the long and complicated back story to all of what's written here popped into my head. I didn't really want to write it all out, so I just decided to go with this. Now, for some reason or another, when I think about AU scenarios with Laura and Tom, if they had met when they were young, I just picture them having a pack of children. I don't even know why, and he's the only character I've ever paired her with where I see this happening. All the make up sex from the arguments, I guess. It's just a mental tick for me. The two of them would just have babies in my mind. I think a part of me wanted to write that. This also sort of turned into an exercise in a different kind of narrative. It was fun to structure the story this way, but I'm not sure if I'll ever want to write a longer piece like this. That would be challenging and more than a little frustrating.
I have this massive pet peeve about AUs, where if something drastic is altered, than nothing in the story past that moment would even remotely occur similarly to what happened in canon. There are a few small exceptions to that which I can see, and there's also the explanation that god is making everything happen anyway so peoples' choices really don't matter, which is just a little annoying when you stop and think about it. For me anyway.
I told that pet peeve to sit in a corner when I wrote this.
Anyway.. I sat down and made myself put this down because I had an idea, and I also wanted to see if I could make myself write something immediately after I got the idea rather than let it sit for months/years and do nothing with it. I at least succeeded on that front.
This story has no title because I couldn't find a reason to give it one.
-
Edward was the oldest, named after Laura's father. Then there was Sarah, and Joseph.
Bill stopped Tom's rambling list of the names of his children to tell him Joseph had been his father's name.
Then there was Marcus, Adelaide then Jamie.
Tom was barely been able to say Christopher's name.
Lydia was the youngest.
Edward, Joseph, Adelaide and Jamie were all married. Bill poured him another drink before he could list off their spouses names. He couldn't bring himself to force the man to shut up about his grandchildren though.
Sylvia, Thomas, Trinity, Horatio and Judy.
Judy was three. Her father had died today in an attack against a cylon mining operation, along with five other pilots. The mission had been a success.
Christopher was probably one of the last people in the universe who had so much of his family left alive. People who knew him, who could remember him. The Zarek family was so large it took several shuttle trips to get them all to one place, meaning they were spending the night on Galactica rather than keep a pilot awake through delta shift ferrying them back to their ship.
After Tom left, Bill stayed awake at his desk, staring at the old photo of himself and his sons.
-
It was totally stupid in her opinion, families should be kept together. But Seelix had drawn the short straw and gotten a shitty detail, not been asked her opinion. Some scientist somewhere had calculated that it was for the best. Children were being scattered amongst the ships, families separated in case a ship was destroyed and their valuable genetic diversity lost.
Not being able to live with your family though.. and Cloud Nine had space for this family, massive as it was.
She looked down to her clipboard and read out the names and the ships they were being relocated to. Joseph and Bianca Zarek and children, Adelaide and Chelsea Zarek and children, and Lydia Zarek were going to the Trident. Marcus Zarek, Jamie and Tiffany Zarek and children, were going to the Dawn Drake. Laura and Thomas Zarek were going to the Prixis.
Because someone had left her off the list, and it would get them a better billet, Judy went with her grandparents.
Seelix kept her eyes on the clipboard and tried not to watch the family splitting up their things.
-
Felix wasn't sure where he was supposed to look.
He couldn't stand the closed off expression on the Admiral's face, and the President's back was turned. He didn't feel like he had the right to avert his own eyes so completely from the scene.
“Lydia, baby, please.”
A garbled shout, and then the line went dead. The comm had to be slowly taken out of Laura Zarek's shaking fingers. Felix noticed most others in the CIC weren't sure where to look either. How did you respond to the mother of a terrorist currently holding members of your crew?
Abinell wouldn't let the Zarek girl back on when they reestablished contact.
With the attempt failed and no one able to spare her anytime at such a critical moment, Laura was taken into DC command and watched over by a communications officer. Felix could see her through the glass, arms tight around her fraying clothes. Tears rolled down her face and lights from the machines reflected off the trails they left.
-
Ishay had a scarf she wore around her head when she went out to the Prometheus. She didn't like the thought of others recognizing her on these trips. Plenty of Galactica's crew visited the market there, but buying contraband wasn't what she came for.
She didn't want word to get back to Cottle in regards to what she was doing. She wouldn't be able to take a lecture from him, or worse yet, encouragement. Ishay didn't want to get him involved, didn't want to invite trouble for him. He didn't need more cases like the Gemenese girl cropping up.
She wrapped the scarf tight around her head, hands shaking. The back room was quiet today.
It had been ever since Jamie gave his wife the overdose of morpha when Ishay just couldn't get the bleeding to stop.
-
There were no windows on their ship, and the shock wave hadn't hit them. It was hours before the captain acknowledged the reports on the wireless.
Emily hadn't gotten frantic like the others. There was no one left for her to worry over, and if the cylons came and blew them up too, well, there was no point screaming about it. They wouldn't even be able to see it coming. There was a group she kept an eye on though, the family that had been moved into the compartment next to hers. Quiet older couple. Quiet little girl.
She knew they had family within the fleet, they visited sometimes.
As the names of the ships that were destroyed when Cloud Nine exploded were read, she watched them. It wasn't hard to figure out.
They were alone now too.
-
“Mind if I have one?”
Sherman could hear crying in the tent behind them. It was always interesting in these situations, seeing which one would break down first. Which one would fall later.
He handed her a cigarette without comment. She had her own light.
Their granddaughter had been having problems since they first settled, but with the cold season, things had just gotten worse.
He knew it wouldn't be the last child lost to New Caprica's winter.
-
They were arguing. They were managing to do it quietly, but they were still arguing.
Saul had the Zareks on his list for a long time. They were some of the best candidates he could find. No one left and not young enough to be a potential loss on future generations. If he still bothered to plan for future generations. It would have been good to get both of them, but from the sound of things in the tent behind him, he would be lucky to get one.
Laura left without a glance spared for him, and Tom stepped out.
“Where?”
They hadn't hit the power plant yet, and Tom worked maintenance there. It was a good target.
-
“When was the last time you were vaccinated?”
“New Caprica.” At his startled look, she elaborated. “I worked with kids. They wanted to make sure I didn't give them anything.”
Michael froze, staring at the woman on his exam table and then back to the file he had. “You're Caprican.”
“Originally.”
“Unusual that you ended up here.”
“We all had to go somewhere, after.”
Somewhere. And she had just managed to get thrown into Dogsville. “I want to give you a vaccine.”
She rolled up her sleeve.
If only the rest of his patients were so easy to work with. He prepared the syringe from the package Cottle had given him.
A nurse poked her head into the curtained off area. “Dr. Robert?”
“I'll be right there.”
-
All Lee could hear was roaring. It was too dark and the water too turbulent for him to be able to see anything. He was going to die having chased after a woman. Life was hysterical sometimes. His body caught on something and he began flailing until he realized, he wasn't snagged, someone had grabbed him. Lee helped his savior by pushing against the banks when his feet finally touched land again.
He coughed and spluttered, staying on his back as his breathing slowly came back to him. “There- there was this woman- need to-”
“What did you lose?”
“-go back, have to- what?”
“What did you lose? I suppose it isn't any of my business, but you did lose something, right?”
Lee could only stare up at the man crouched next to him, trying to figure out what he was saying. “I didn't.. I didn't lose.. there was a woman. She got into the river, I tried-”
“To save her. It's alright.”
“You found her?”
The man sighed, rocking on his heels. “There isn't a woman to be found.”
“But-”
“You saw her, yes, I know. There isn't a woman to be found, because the lady who walked into that river did so more than a month ago.”
Lee tried to respond, but his mind was still jumbled from his tossing in the current.
“It's okay. You must be the tenth person to see her since it happened. I say it's because you lost something, but Greenwhich keeps insisting she's just trying to kill people. I think she's helping.”
“Helping?”
“Come back to the village with me son, we can hike back upriver and look for whatever gear you dropped in your haste to play hero later. At least, I hope you had gear out here, but stay a while if you've got something or not. Maybe you'll find whatever it is you lost.”
Lee let his head drop back to the ground, feeling more confused by the second. “I don't think that's possible.”