Fade to Gray
When it all ends...
When everything fades to gray,
She goes through the motions of making a shelter; sifting and scraping away at the rubble until her hands are dark with ash. For long moments she sits and stares at them, the eternal twilight of what was Earth playing with her vision until she is not sure what she really sees.
D'Anna jumps back, scrambling through the debris until at last she realizes they are her own hands, not those of the bloated, rotting corpse she imagined. Her harsh laughter rings out through the empty streets.
Light plays strange tricks on the mind.
We dive into the darkness
Some things are needless to say...
She doesn't blink when she gives the order. They are humans: inferior. So sad they will never know God's love. They are to be pitied, guided if possible, if not then better to free them from their singular existence. Death is the final destination of the weak.
It echoes in her soul, the justness of her actions. The Ones with their vaunted notions and holier than thou rhetoric look upon her as righteous. The Sixes with their strange empathy for the humans view her with contempt and the Twos with their visions believe her almost insightful as they.
Yet in the back of her mind, there is a niggling of doubt. What if their plan isn't HIS plan? Who is to say or to know for certain? Leoban would call it faith, but at this moment, looking over New Caprica, seeing the humans thrive even under the heavy hand of justice, the only name D'Anna can give it is blindness.
Within the ranks of the Threes a new consensus forms, skepticism is healthy; the methods must be questioned.
It's not fair to lose it,
And how... there was a time now
But Death is cheating us somehow
Survival is instinctive, such a part of Cylon nature that the body continues to push even after the mind caves in- or is the other way around? She's been here alone so long she can't remember. She stayed behind to die believing Earth could not sustain her.
Why then has she lingered so long? First the shelter, then painstaking rationing of what little Galactica left behind. She protested their kindness. It only prolonged the inevitable. Only a little of the food remains and she finds herself seeking out the wispy slips of sickly green plants, foraging here and there for tiny scraps of life. It keeps her busy she reasons.
"Idle hands are the devil's workshop." She starts at her own voice. It's foreign to her ears. Is this what she sounded like before? She wishes she'd paid attention. Falling to the ground she sighs, just one in a string of things she took for granted.
This is her purgatory.
No words are needed, only a gaze, embrace...
Contact the living, remember the dead...
Caprica's laugh is low and rich, it reverberates through D'Anna's body as they lay tangled together and makes her smile. "Did I say something funny?" D'Anna asks, combing fingers through platinum strands.
Caprica rests her chin on D'Anna's chest, tilting her head at a rakish angle. "It's not what you said that was funny. What's funny is that I've often wondered the same: do we Cylons have souls?"
Caprica's eyes sparkle as she looks up and D'Anna wonders why she never noticed how blue they were before. The revelation, though small, is stunning and it's a full five minutes before D'Anna can bring herself to speak. "Well do we?"
A frown creases Caprica's face. It seems so out of place there. "Yes," she says with conviction.
"What makes you so certain?
Caprica shakes her head. "I don't know. I just am. Something sets us apart."
"Humans have souls; yet we are superior," D'Anna twines Caprica's hair around her fingers.
"You think because their existence is finite, they are inferior," Caprica smiles sadly. "In fact, the opposite is true. It's what makes them relentless. Every moment has to count."
There is always something to learn,
Repetition proves it's worth
Without those moments, we would not remember
She no longer flinches when the gun is fired.
The first time she was shot by another Cylon she was frightened. She still remembers her anger, white hot and seething as the Eight known as Sharon left her to bleed out on New Caprica.
Now she welcomes the Centurion's bullet. Though it moves too fast to see, she feels the impact. Her eyes roll back as she hits the floor welcoming the precious moments between Death and Download.
In them she sees more clearly than she's ever seen with physical eyes. Time stretches out before her in ribbons, unfurling and twining showing her the way. The paths are too numerous and varied for her to remember them all.
She only retains fragments and as she awakes D'Anna curses her limited memory.
Later she tries to recall the image, yet it is cloudy, like looking at a map through a pane of frosted glass.
Each download she retains more and more.
Genesis turns to it's source, reduction occurs stepwise through the essence is all one. End of line.
The words echo and reverberate in her mind. When the Hybrid speaks them aloud, D'Anna is afraid.
Shaken to the core, she trembles, awestruck at the realization that through her His plan will be brought to fruition.
For once I am happy my little friend
Cannot comprehend what we are seeing
While searching for tools she comes upon a pile of children's playthings. A small truck, a deflated ball, a battered doll. D'Anna picks each of them up in turn examining them closely, baffled by their purpose.
As she turns the doll, it's eyes close. This fascinates her. Up, down, open, closed until she is nearly dizzy.
Gathering them up she returns to her shelter. Carefully, she arranges her new trinkets in the corner, the doll in the center flanked by the shapeless ball and rusted truck.
She lays the doll down and it's eyes click shut. D'Anna laughs in delight. She had almost forgotten happiness but these things remind her of brighter days, of a time when hope was tangible not a thing of the past.
She is living her life in reverse, childhood a final experience before the end and she finds herself looking at this bleak and desolate world with wonder.
Tools are forgotten; instead her daylight hours are spent in earnest exploration. She loses count of the days and her hands grow raw from the digging and the debris. Bit by bit the city yields to her many treasures.
A whole family of plasticine poppets invade her shelter. They come in all shapes and sizes skin tones as varied as the dolls themselves.
She reads to them from a children's storybook she found along the way. Her thoughts turn to Hera. D'Anna wonders if her mother reads to her this way, if the child laughs and claps or drifts off lulled to sleep by her mother's soothing tones.
Her hand drifts to her belly and she tries to imagine what it must be like to carry life inside. Her one regret is she will never know.
The unseeing eyes implore her: don't look back. She no longer thinks of this as shelter, instead it becomes home. This is as close to motherhood as she will get.
Kneeling down, take in the moment when
Everything becomes finally clear.
D'Anna isn't sure when it happens, Caprica becoming more than just another Six. Only that she feels different in Caprica's presence.
Lightness fills her chest, capillaries dilate, it is difficult to breath.
In some ways Caprica's absence affects her more keenly than her presence. When she is away D'Anna is disoriented, distracted.
Baltar whispers in Caprica's ear, eliciting a laugh that morphs into a sigh.
A stab in D'Anna's chest catches her off guard. Jealousy. She longs for Caprica to be hers alone. Even so, she knows it cannot be. Baltar is an integral part of the plan.
He smiles, inviting her to join them and she does, closing her eyes as Caprica's mouth seals over hers. It doesn't take much to fool her senses, to pretend he isn't part of the equation.
Baltar's obsession with the Hybrid draws him away and D'Anna takes advantage of his absence. Awkward yet hopeful, she visits Caprica alone.
Her heart nearly stops as Caprica's fingertips brush against her cheek. It speeds up again as their lips meet. D'Anna tries to hold on to each sensation but there are far too many to process. The soft swish of fabric falling to the floor, teeth grazing skin, Caprica arching beneath her, the soft scrape of nails along the inside of her thigh.
After, they remain entwined, long limbs tangling together as they punctuate the silence with soft, sweet kisses. Caprica's eyelids are heavy and thin sheen of sweat clings to her flushed skin. D'Anna has never seen anything more beautiful in her entire existence.
Words stick in her throat and she finds herself unable to give voice to what she is feeling.
It's name is love.
It's not fair, it's not fair, there was a time now...
Surprising and sudden the rain comes. It is the first she's seen since her arrival. Large gray drops 'plip-plopping' on the broken concrete. D'Anna turns her face heavenward and drinks it in mind, body, soul, not moving until she is soaked to the skin, her tattered clothing sodden and clinging to her gaunt frame.
It's a long time before the pale sun appears again. She strips down, lying bare in the wilted grass, staring up at the streaks of clouds in the sky. As most things here, they are varying shades of gray.
The landscape reminds her of a chalk drawing she saw back on Caprica, it's vibrant colors becoming muted by the rain. It's always like that here, things melt into one another: day into night, earth into sky.
At first the quiet strained her nerves. Then one day she noticed sound all around her. Wind whistled through twisted metal, waves lapped at shore. In them she could hear faint strains of familiar music and the stanzas of half forgotten poems.
"Because I could not stop for Death-
he kindly stopped for me-"
When would Death stop for her? she wondered. It had been so long and she was so tired. How much more penance was there to pay?
Tonight my life will lack it's meaning
One final step before we're seeing...
It should be the two of them entering the Temple: her and Caprica.
The Hybrid stirs. Accepting scan. Love outlasts death.
Dread settles stone-like in D'Anna's stomach. This was not part of The Plan.
No matter how many times she sees the vision, it ends the same: Caprica's limp form on the temple floor, blood flowing, eyes unseeing. End of line.
She brings Baltar to the Hybrid. His eyes shine with a faith that inside her is faltering. In an instant she decides, knowing she will pay for the defiance with her life. Life has no meaning if Caprica is gone.
It is easy enough to convince Baltar he is the chosen one. He has already decided, even though D'Anna knows the truth. He is only chosen because she speaks it.
"I'd like to think that we three have shared something. Transcended the barriers that separate people. And yet, somehow, the more time goes on, the more I find myself on the outside looking in," Caprica says.
D'Anna feels the sharp impact of her pain. It stings more than a Centurion's bullet.
"Well, that's not the case at all. Is it? Because we three, we're integral. We're part of…"
How Baltar manages to be so smug yet, sorrowful is beyond her.
D'Anna swallows pushing down the disgust, the self loathing. This is how it must be. "We're finished. Baltar's and my destiny lie separate from yours, Caprica. The five lights will only be revealed to those who enter the Temple. We have to go down to the planet. Only Gaius and I can see this through."
"What are you after?" Caprica demands. "What is this secret that you keep pursuing? You have to tell me the truth. I love you both."
D'Anna feels her heart breaking. "We love you too." I love you. It's why you cannot go. "But this is something you cannot share with us."
Though her legs feel like lead she turns and goes. D'Anna knows this way she will die but Caprica will live. The alternative is unacceptable.
It is both the most difficult and easiest task of her life. Only by losing Caprica can she save her.
Pain makes love worthwhile.
Can't walk away, nothing to say
no need to feel so afraid,
Colors last a lifetime and fade to gray...
She stops trying. No more food, no more water, no more movement.
She stretches out on the sand, her eyes turned toward a horizon she cannot see. Her energy reserves are spent on one last projection. A green world with tall trees and rolling hills. It's the sort of place she had once dreamed of with Caprica.
The vision lasts long enough to occupy her mind as her body shuts down. Then it cracks and begins to fade.
end of line
As darkness closes in, a soft light breaks through, a familiar silhouette, a hand to guide her home.
Love makes pain worthwhile.