A Belated Birthday Present
Jan. 26th, 2012 09:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
in_the_blueA Battlestar Galactica fic for lostinapapercup.
Perfection
The problem is (and always has been) that he gets lost in her. In the concept of Kara, in the beautiful intricacy of that frakked-up mind of hers, in the feel of her fingertips dragging along his skin, in the taste of her mouth, the bite of her words, the hidden anger and hurt in her eyes. She got under his skin that very first day back on Caprica, crawled right in like she belonged there, and he liked the fit. No, he loved the fit. He loved her like she was part of him from the very start and now he can see that was true all along. She's as much a part of him as he is of her and the last time they saw each other a promise was left on the table. A promise that made him fight with everything he had, every last bit of whatever it is that makes him Sam, to find the words buried deep inside and force his mouth to form them.
I'll see you on the other side.
He's always taken his promises seriously and he's always taken his responsibilities seriously and he knows knows knows that he's useless like this, useless to himself, to his friends, to his wife. But he is useful to the fleet and he can do this one last thing. It won't be pleasant and it won't be easy but he's never shied away from a challenge, not once in his life, just because it was gonna be difficult or even seemingly impossible. Death sentence? Of course, but he's already dead for all intents and purposes. They all are. There's no more resurrection, no more five of them each holding a piece of the secret. Tory's gone and he should feel something about that but can't bring himself to do it. Emotion is in short supply right now, but focus is everything. It's like he's been given a sacred charge, and he will do this thing, this last set of orders, this last request, this last gasp for the fleet. He's got nothing to lose, but infinity to gain.
They didn't need to promote him from Ensign to Admiral to take charge of the fleet. Whether they knew or recognized it, things were already under his control, and by his agreement and largesse Raptors were allowed to leave to take the fleet, human and Cylon alike, to the planet's surface. It was by his agreement and largesse that the remaining ships came under his control. It was by his agreement and largesse that after a suitable delay, after a final check for remaining life forms [01 remaining, location: Galactica CIC], the slow trip toward the sun was initiated at his command.
I'll see you on the other side.
He heard it, he heard everything that happened on this ship. Plugged in or not made no difference; all data was stacked and stored for immediate transmission and delivery upon power-up status and with the... the beauty of bits and bytes, the power of the unimaginable speed of accelerated binary code, he received all the information at once. Angels walk among us: if he'd been capable of laughter he would have laughed at that revelation. Kara might have been an angel to Gaius Baltar and to Leoben and to everyone else after the fact, but from the day she first pointed the barrel of a gun at him on Caprica, she was his angel. She was his pyramid-playing cigar-smoking death-defying foul-mouthed impatient irritable sexy-as-frak so-filled-with-love-it-hurt-her angel, and he knew it before she even graced his makeshift bed in a former classroom at Delphi Union High School. He knew it just looking at her. He knew it from the pride in her eyes, from the fierceness of her will to not just survive but to live. He knew she was going to be his just as he knew she was going to leave. And return. And leave. And return. It's too late now for regrets but he doesn't have any, doesn't have the luxury of that very human emotion. Slowly, the temperature, both exterior and interior, rises. This body he inhabits will be boiled in this tub and there's only so much control he has over the water's temperature. It will inevitably cause every internal system, both physical and digital, to shut down both from self-preservation and system failure. The only thing he can be certain of is that the entity once known as Samuel T. Anders will be gone long before this ship meets the heat of the sun, and that's fine with him. He's all for being cleansed and purged, all for preparing for what's next, but he's never been into pain all that much. No, give him pleasure, pleasure and accomplishment. Save the love of experiential pain for his son John and his daughter D'Anna, the wonder of it for his son Leoben, the study of it for his son Simon, the futility of it for his daughter Sharon and his son Aaron, the endlessness of it for his daughter Caprica. Had his son Daniel been around, he could have marveled over the intimate artistry of pain but he's been gone for a long, long time.
He'll see him on the other side too.
The data flooding his system indicates that the inhabitable planet is far behind the fleet. Another celestial body, bright and radiant, lies beside them. DRADIS indicates that planet and one more between them and this system's sun. The star is distant and there's no remaining FTL capability on this ship; they won't be able to jump and have it end quickly. Be dispassionate about it, Sam, he tells himself amid a swirling array of ones and zeroes flooding what counts as programming to become entirely visualized through these eyes. It's a game, a game of pyramid and you have to get the ball in the goal and there's only one way to do it: by moving forward. It's your elusive search for perfection seeking you out this time. Ignore the discomfort. Ignore the pain. Keep your eyes on the prize, your focus on the goal. You can do this.
In pyramid, he'd get so... so focused, his attention so narrow that all he knew was the trajectory of the ball, the rate of his own heartbeat, and the proximity of the nearest players. It was like time slowed, like nothing else was important enough to break through that barrier of concentration. That's what it's like now. The only thing he can think about, the only thing he can afford to think about, is not the trajectory of the ball or the closeness of another player but the movements of the fleet. One by one Colonial signals are received and acknowledged through this vast data bank at his disposal. One by one their routes past these... these amazing and beautiful planets that deserve study, deserve observation, are calculated and recalculated.
Zero life signs save for one, and no one cares if the life sign is Cylon or human. It's still recognized as alive. Not for so very much longer, he suspects; the heat rises from the water in the tub and he blinks, blinks, blinks. So do the lights on Galactica. They've passed the beautiful bright planet now and the still-incoming data from it is amazing, and he wishes there was some way to save it or some way to transmit it to somebody somewhere. But that's not his mission. Focus, Ensign.
(Just a little bit longer. Let me be aware of this, this beautiful life for just a little bit longer.)
Ensign, refocus, now. You have a mission.
Mission.
Mission: don't worry, baby, we'll get you to that Heavy Raider, I know where and when it lands. Before we go, though, how about one more. One more kiss, one more caress, one more frak. One more. Come on, you know you want it. Mission? Sure, sure. Go for the mission instead of me. Check it out, Kara Thrace, I can put on the saddest frakking face you've ever seen. It works, man, it works, it works, look at you, you fell for it, baby, you fell for it. The memory replays, puts a smile on this nearly immobile dead-to-the-worlds face of his and if Kara was here right now watching she'd feign anger and then laugh that beautiful loud laugh of hers, and he'd pull her into this tub with him and grin about how well he faked her out and hold her and hold her and hold her forever. It would be perfection and he would never let her go. Never.
lostinapapercup.Perfection
The problem is (and always has been) that he gets lost in her. In the concept of Kara, in the beautiful intricacy of that frakked-up mind of hers, in the feel of her fingertips dragging along his skin, in the taste of her mouth, the bite of her words, the hidden anger and hurt in her eyes. She got under his skin that very first day back on Caprica, crawled right in like she belonged there, and he liked the fit. No, he loved the fit. He loved her like she was part of him from the very start and now he can see that was true all along. She's as much a part of him as he is of her and the last time they saw each other a promise was left on the table. A promise that made him fight with everything he had, every last bit of whatever it is that makes him Sam, to find the words buried deep inside and force his mouth to form them.
I'll see you on the other side.
He's always taken his promises seriously and he's always taken his responsibilities seriously and he knows knows knows that he's useless like this, useless to himself, to his friends, to his wife. But he is useful to the fleet and he can do this one last thing. It won't be pleasant and it won't be easy but he's never shied away from a challenge, not once in his life, just because it was gonna be difficult or even seemingly impossible. Death sentence? Of course, but he's already dead for all intents and purposes. They all are. There's no more resurrection, no more five of them each holding a piece of the secret. Tory's gone and he should feel something about that but can't bring himself to do it. Emotion is in short supply right now, but focus is everything. It's like he's been given a sacred charge, and he will do this thing, this last set of orders, this last request, this last gasp for the fleet. He's got nothing to lose, but infinity to gain.
They didn't need to promote him from Ensign to Admiral to take charge of the fleet. Whether they knew or recognized it, things were already under his control, and by his agreement and largesse Raptors were allowed to leave to take the fleet, human and Cylon alike, to the planet's surface. It was by his agreement and largesse that the remaining ships came under his control. It was by his agreement and largesse that after a suitable delay, after a final check for remaining life forms [01 remaining, location: Galactica CIC], the slow trip toward the sun was initiated at his command.
I'll see you on the other side.
He heard it, he heard everything that happened on this ship. Plugged in or not made no difference; all data was stacked and stored for immediate transmission and delivery upon power-up status and with the... the beauty of bits and bytes, the power of the unimaginable speed of accelerated binary code, he received all the information at once. Angels walk among us: if he'd been capable of laughter he would have laughed at that revelation. Kara might have been an angel to Gaius Baltar and to Leoben and to everyone else after the fact, but from the day she first pointed the barrel of a gun at him on Caprica, she was his angel. She was his pyramid-playing cigar-smoking death-defying foul-mouthed impatient irritable sexy-as-frak so-filled-with-love-it-hurt-her angel, and he knew it before she even graced his makeshift bed in a former classroom at Delphi Union High School. He knew it just looking at her. He knew it from the pride in her eyes, from the fierceness of her will to not just survive but to live. He knew she was going to be his just as he knew she was going to leave. And return. And leave. And return. It's too late now for regrets but he doesn't have any, doesn't have the luxury of that very human emotion. Slowly, the temperature, both exterior and interior, rises. This body he inhabits will be boiled in this tub and there's only so much control he has over the water's temperature. It will inevitably cause every internal system, both physical and digital, to shut down both from self-preservation and system failure. The only thing he can be certain of is that the entity once known as Samuel T. Anders will be gone long before this ship meets the heat of the sun, and that's fine with him. He's all for being cleansed and purged, all for preparing for what's next, but he's never been into pain all that much. No, give him pleasure, pleasure and accomplishment. Save the love of experiential pain for his son John and his daughter D'Anna, the wonder of it for his son Leoben, the study of it for his son Simon, the futility of it for his daughter Sharon and his son Aaron, the endlessness of it for his daughter Caprica. Had his son Daniel been around, he could have marveled over the intimate artistry of pain but he's been gone for a long, long time.
He'll see him on the other side too.
The data flooding his system indicates that the inhabitable planet is far behind the fleet. Another celestial body, bright and radiant, lies beside them. DRADIS indicates that planet and one more between them and this system's sun. The star is distant and there's no remaining FTL capability on this ship; they won't be able to jump and have it end quickly. Be dispassionate about it, Sam, he tells himself amid a swirling array of ones and zeroes flooding what counts as programming to become entirely visualized through these eyes. It's a game, a game of pyramid and you have to get the ball in the goal and there's only one way to do it: by moving forward. It's your elusive search for perfection seeking you out this time. Ignore the discomfort. Ignore the pain. Keep your eyes on the prize, your focus on the goal. You can do this.
In pyramid, he'd get so... so focused, his attention so narrow that all he knew was the trajectory of the ball, the rate of his own heartbeat, and the proximity of the nearest players. It was like time slowed, like nothing else was important enough to break through that barrier of concentration. That's what it's like now. The only thing he can think about, the only thing he can afford to think about, is not the trajectory of the ball or the closeness of another player but the movements of the fleet. One by one Colonial signals are received and acknowledged through this vast data bank at his disposal. One by one their routes past these... these amazing and beautiful planets that deserve study, deserve observation, are calculated and recalculated.
Zero life signs save for one, and no one cares if the life sign is Cylon or human. It's still recognized as alive. Not for so very much longer, he suspects; the heat rises from the water in the tub and he blinks, blinks, blinks. So do the lights on Galactica. They've passed the beautiful bright planet now and the still-incoming data from it is amazing, and he wishes there was some way to save it or some way to transmit it to somebody somewhere. But that's not his mission. Focus, Ensign.
(Just a little bit longer. Let me be aware of this, this beautiful life for just a little bit longer.)
Ensign, refocus, now. You have a mission.
Mission.
Mission: don't worry, baby, we'll get you to that Heavy Raider, I know where and when it lands. Before we go, though, how about one more. One more kiss, one more caress, one more frak. One more. Come on, you know you want it. Mission? Sure, sure. Go for the mission instead of me. Check it out, Kara Thrace, I can put on the saddest frakking face you've ever seen. It works, man, it works, it works, look at you, you fell for it, baby, you fell for it. The memory replays, puts a smile on this nearly immobile dead-to-the-worlds face of his and if Kara was here right now watching she'd feign anger and then laugh that beautiful loud laugh of hers, and he'd pull her into this tub with him and grin about how well he faked her out and hold her and hold her and hold her forever. It would be perfection and he would never let her go. Never.
