3 hours after landing on Earth. Galactica.
The hangar bay
"This is a joke. This is a lie… This can't be true!!"
D'Anna Biers, The cylon, the leader, the manipulator was deceived. Deceived by a prophecy! Deceived by her own visions! There had to be someone to pay! There had to be someone guilty of all of this! She couldn't bear it alone…
CIC
Laura stood speechless in the heavy silence. Earth. Her personal heaven. Her personal Hell. Her personal failure. But the desperation she shared with all of them- the people who believed in her. The people she betrayed.
"Madame President"
D'Anna Biers was staying behind her.
"I have something to tell you"
Admiral Adama's quarters
Bill was staring at the wall in front of him with an empty look.
Earth. Earth. Earth.
One big lie.
One lie he created. One abyss of nothingness he created. An abyss which was laughing at his face now.
Earth.
How devastated a human being can be? Was this the end? Was this the worst that which could happen- to lose your home twice? Was mankind so sinful that The Gods didn't allow it to have home? Was Bill so incapable as a leader that he failed everyone and sent them to the middle of nowhere, in a wasteland, in a desert of hopelessness and sorrow?
"The end of the line" he had said a couple of hours ago.
The end of the line. The beginning of humanity's end
"I want to be a cylon. I want to feel nothing."
A buzz. A voice calling him in CIC. Laura.
Bill stood up and started walking. It was Laura's voice the only reason to want to be alive. It was Laura's voice which could wake him from the nightmare. It was Laura's voice, it was Love's voice. At least love was not a lie
CIC
Bill entered in the quietness of his commanding centre sensing there was something wrong. It was not the optimistic silence before the announcement of Earth. It was not the desperate silence after seeing the nuked planet. It was another kind of silence. Fearful. Dark. Dangerous.
D'Anna Biers, Tom Zarek, Lee Adama, Saul Tigh and the whole Quorum staying in front of him with wide opened eyes.
And Laura. Laura, whose look was somewhere far away from here. Laura who couldn't meet his eyes.
D'Anna Biers stepped out and put a hand on his shoulder.
"Don't worry. Everyone knows now. The whole truth- wasn't that what the humans wanted?"
Bill gave her a puzzled look.
"What the frak are you talking about?"
"It can't be true!! He has never been on our meetings! He didn't hear the music!! It can't be true….." Saul Tigh was repeating again and again.
For the first time in his life, Admiral Adama was afraid to ask. The silence was too much for an answer…
Finally, Laura looked him. Blue and Green. Fear and desperation. Doubt and doubt. Love behind bars.
"D'Anna Biers said you are a cylon."
The words, coming from her mouth were more than a statement. They were a verdict. Because she was the one to say them- not D'Anna, not the other final five, but her- Laura, the one who believed in them.
"Why I didn't hear the music?" A stranger asked with his voice.
"You did"
D'Anna's piercing eyes locked with his.
"You did. You knew. You all knew."
And then Bill understood how it felt to be a lie.
"Why didn't you tell us, dad? I gave amnesty to the four! Why didn't you tell us?" A boy in a man's body was crying for his lost father. A boy in a man's body was crying for a lie.
Laura was now looking at him again. Love behind bars. Love destroyed by a lie.
'I don't know why my brother didn't tell the truth. I wanted him on the ship exactly because he was one of us."
An ensign entered CIC and breathlessly said to The Admiral of the Fleet:
"The coordinates of Kara's viper have been read in a wrong way. Someone missed the final 5 numbers. The whole jump has been wrong. We are not supposed to be here!"
The final five numbers. What an irony.
Everyone in the room stared at Bill. Accusing before getting an evidence. Believeing before he said anything. Hating before actually understanding.
Bill raised his hands to Laura's marines.
"Lead the way, gentlemen."
Laura was still looking somewhere else….
Galactica, Admiral Adama's quarters, 30 min later
"Why did you call the whole Quorum?? Why did you say it in front of everyone??"
Lee Adama was shaking D'Anna Biers with desperate rage
"You said you didn't know who the last cylon is!! What changed?? He's my father!! How dare you??"
"Lee. Stop."
Laura Roslin entered the room. Lee let the cylon go, never heard The President talking so quietly- a devastated reconciliation screaming in her voice. There was something missing in her eyes.
Life.
D'Anna left the room as quickly as possible leaving a son and a woman in love trying to find the meaning of their existence.
Five minutes. Ten. Half an hour. Ah hour.
They were not even able to cry. This was something demanding more than tears. This was something beyond conventional grief. This was the world of two people ending for a 3rd time.
In the brig
He didn't let them turn the lights on. Darkness was fine with him now. Darkness was soothing. He couldn't see himself in the mirror. He wasn't able to recognize who is in front of him anyway.
He was a lie.
But there was one last piece of truth in that lie he desperately clung to. Even if Bill Adama was a lie, he still hadn't known he was a cylon before. He hadn't known. And he was not going to leave this world without telling this to Laura.
Laura. He wanted his last truth to be heard by the truth Laura has always been to him. Truth seeking for shelter in other truth. Love behind bars in a last silent try to fly.
Admiral Adama's quarters
"The Quorum and the fleet want the death penalty. They believe Bill sabotaged the jump."
"No trial?"
Laura and Lee looked in each other's eyes. Blue and Green. Lost hope and lost hope.
"No trial." Answered Laura as if the repeating the words was able to relieve the pain they caused.
The buzz of the phone.
The President and the Colonial delegate asked themselves who to pick up the phone. Laura and Lee wanted just to let it ring.
The brig
The sounds of her steps brought him fear he didn't knew he was capable of experiencing. The lights were on. The bars unlocked. The handcuffs uncuffed.
Laura stood in front of Bill waiting for his eyes to meet hers.
It was so easy to look in the floor.
"You wanted to see me."
Her voice sounded tenderer than she intended and Bill sensed it immediately. A coldness making its way to his heart. He could survive her being more severe, but not tenderer. Never.
"Yes." The stranger again. Speaking with his voice. "Who is in command?"
"Nobody." She whispered. "They are too busy gathering the remnants."
He didn't ask remnants of what. There were too many things destroyed.
"I didn't know I'm a cylon."
The stranger was gone. It was him again. With his voice. Telling his last truth. His only truth.
Laura sat next to him on the prisoner rack. Their eyes meeting at last. Their truths connecting them. Love behind bars. Love they didn't have the right to use as an evidence of his innocence.
She didn't even ask about Kara's viper. There was no need. This was a truth she knew better than herself. And he didn't try to raise the subject letting her give him her trust. The only thing she could give him now. Her love behind bars.
Tears. A shaking hand caressing his face. A kiss on his forehead.
"Death penalty" he whispered, seeing the hopelessness. Reconciliation. Relief.
"I'm going to fight it." She answered.
"You can't. This is their choice."
Bill turned to the wall. His truth shared. He was all lie now.
"Turn the lights off when you leave"
3 hours later
They still respected him. The guards. Noone dared to ask why the former Admiral, leader and father of the colonies wanted to be freed. Noone from the crew accepted the fact that he was a cylon. Noone wanted to believe.
So Bill was free. Walking his last way. Stepping into the airlock. Pressing the button for the gate.
He was a lie. Born from nothingness. And going back to nothingness.
CIC
D'Anna Biers collapsed. There was something terribly wrong in the piercing light the Final Five radiated. Something punishing. Something sinister, merciless and furious.
"YOU LIED" A terrifying voice shook her. "YOU LIED"
The Fifth cylon rose from the shadow and took off his hood.
D'Anna Biers saw her yes mirroring….
her eyes.
The Fifth of The Five.
The cylon, who died countless times in order to see the chosen ones.
The Cylon who died so many times she had become someone else. Someone she was looking for.
The last Six in the universe.
D'Anna.
A Final Five.
...
In one of the airlocks a man pushed the red button.
And destiny denied him the so desirable death.
A figure in white. Laura. Stopping the system. Opening the gate. Throwing herself in his arms. Love breaking the bars.
He kissed her fiercely, without knowing anything, but sensing something has changed.
D'Anna watched them from the corner.
Earth was a lie. But it couldn't be fixed with another lie.
