For Batya

[in_the_blue]

batyatoon asked me for a Battlestar Galactica fic: Five times someone petted / fed / played with Jake the Dog on New Caprica (before or during the Cylon occupation), and what they were thinking at the time. I've been turning over the possibilities in my brain since she left the prompt. Here goes.

"Look, Nicky. Dog. D-O-G. Dog." Cally Tyrol hoisted the baby up away from the dog's face, from that drippy pink tongue that insisted on lolling to the side. He was a good dog, Jake, and just about the only dog left in the fleet. If he was someone's pet -- of course he was someone's pet, someone owned him and fed him and took care of him, although she could swear she'd seen Galen adjusting his bowl a time or two and never really knew he had a thing for dogs but with Nicky around she really didn't have time to ponder that very hard -- then someone was lucky. "Dog," she repeated, and took Nicky's hand in hers and ran it along coarse fur. Jake panted happily and in a very doglike way tilted his nose up and sniffed the baby. Then he licked Nicky's face until the baby laughed and until Cally laughed. "Good dog." There was more fondness in her words than she'd spared for anyone the past few weeks. Laughter felt great.

"Come on, Nicky. Let's go find Daddy."

*

He only ever ventured out to the dog's side late at night when no one could see him. Felix Gaeta did a lot of things late at night when no one could see him, but this was probably the most public of those secret things. It was nothing more than a signal: the dog's bowl upside-down or right-side up, that's all. Perfectly innocent. Or it would be if he wasn't passing along sensitive information to the Resistance forces. Lists, mostly, lists of people the Cylons wanted for questioning or lists of transponder codes or lists of dates and times for meetings or lists of people being recruited for the New Caprica police force. The Resistance here was ragtag at best, a bunch of terrorists if he was reading things correctly, and he wished fervently that he could play a bigger part in things. A more obvious part at least: everyone wanted to be a hero in his or her own way, didn't they? But someone had to work behind the scenes. Someone had to have inside knowledge and be in a unique position to pass it along.

It hurt that no one would or could know it was him, but he took a lot of satisfaction in doing what he did. Nobody suspected him. He'd bear the brunt of everyone's disdain and keep working for Gaius as long as he could do something to make a difference.

This definitely did. It filled him with a sense of relief, of doing the right thing. Even Jake seemed to appreciate it: he wagged his tail and licked Felix's hand, and enjoyed every minute of the petting he got. Tonight it was more than the usual pat on the head. Gaeta smiled as he strode off into the foggy darkness. Doing his part was almost too easy.

*

Maybe, Leoben thought as he made his way back toward the apartment building ("it's not a detention center, Kara, how many times do I have to tell you that?" "I don't know, how many times do I have to kill you?"), she would feel more at home if they had a pet.

Maybe he'd bring that dog home one of these times. He'd never had any affinity toward pets. It seemed to be a uniquely human thing, the need for something small and helpless to take care of. There was something associative about it, he knew that much, but grasping the need for it was beyond him. He wandered over to where the dog sat chained up, keeping guard like dogs did, but as soon as he got near the dog's hackles raised and he started to growl, then growled a little more viciously and as he extended his hand to pet it, Jake barked an angry bark and reared up on his hind legs.

So much for that. Surely there was some other tiny helpless creature around he could bring home to soften Kara. There had to be. His brothers and sisters had given him free reign to do what he wanted ("play house with Kara Thrace all you want," they told him). In the distance, a young mother hurried by with a little yellow-haired toddler.

"Hmm," he said to the air because God knew none of the Colonials would so much as talk to him, "that should work." He'd send the Centurions over to fetch the girl in just a little while. In the meantime, there were things to prepare and long-buried reports from Caprica to brush up on. If a daughter of her (their) very own didn't get Kara to stop killing him, it just might be that nothing would.

*

No one knew, not a single one of them, just how frakking lonely it was without her. They'd had so many plans, so many things they wanted to do. New Caprica had seemed like a dream come true at the time, and once they had the tent set up -- Nora had been so happy when she set up the altar -- marriage seemed pretty inevitable, and kids after that. He couldn't wait, he loved her just that much.

And now she was gone, and he didn't have a godsdamn thing to live for. Duck settled into the dirt by the dog's side because he needed something to touch, something for comfort, something to settle the anger burning in his gut over what had happened to Nora. Over what the Resistance had done, hiding weapons in a frakking temple. Over what the Cylons had done, over how little control any of them had. The dog, Jake was his name, curled up in his lap, head resting on his thigh.

"I guess you're craving attention too, huh, boy." Duck petted the dog head to tail, head to tail, head to tail, and as he did it, his anger faded just a little bit. Just enough so he could breathe again. Just enough so that when he saw Chief and Tigh, heads together, muttering secrets between them, his thoughts filled with clarity for the first time. His argument wasn't with them or with what they'd done or how they'd used or hidden their limited resources. It was with Baltar. He was the one who'd gotten into bed with the Cylons. He was the one who needed to pay, and not just for Nora's death but for everything.

For what seemed like hours he stayed with the dog and the dog stayed with him, but once he got up again he knew exactly what he was going to do. Exactly.

*

The way Chief patted the dog on the head was almost an afterthought, but he was busy. He had things to do, and he had to do them quietly. Oh, sure, he went about his business most days wondering exactly when the shit would hit the fan and the toasters would come for him, but so far they'd left him alone. Watchful waiting on both sides, he knew: if they thought he was just the Union organizer and didn't have time to play Resistance fighter, then they were a frak of a lot more stupid than he thought, and he didn't think any of them were all that stupid.

Just redundant. Too many of them. He guessed in some ways they could be deemed beautiful, but not to him. Give him someone real any day: that was a lesson he learned the hard way with Boomer. She was nothing but a machine, and the rest of those frakkers were nothing but machines, and if he was going to go, he'd take as many of them down with him as he could. He and Anders made a good pair of Resistance leaders and he learned a lot from the guy, considering all the experience he'd garnered on Caprica after the war started. Like most of Anders' ideas, the dog bowl thing came from a movie he'd seen once but it worked. It worked, and every night Chief stopped by on his way home from the Union tent to pet the dog and frak if he didn't have to turn that godsdamn yellow bowl upright at least half the time.

It was one of the most natural things in the world. Just a reaction to a thing, to right an upset water bowl. If the day ever came when he found out who his inside contact was, he told himself as he gave Jake a quick pat on the head, he'd hug the frak out of that brave selfless motherfrakker. No one would deserve it more.