Athena/Helo
Earth is cold.
Athena maneuvers under the tent canvas placing Hera's toys and Helo's clothes on the improvised shelves made of old planks and angular stones, trying to gain some free space to move around.
Earth is bright and sterile and so, so goddamned cold that her feet are nearly freezing almost to the point of no return and she has to rub her own arms vehemently in order to keep some warmth.
"It's not how I had imagined."
From the mess of blankets and old hard cushions that make up the bed Helo embraces their daughter preventing her from getting too cold and mussing her hair while she sleeps soundlessly.
"I think it's not how anybody had imagined."
Her voice sounds a little harsh, as if it also felt too cold traveling in waves in the air so she decides that enough is enough and that it's about time to hit the bed.
"Do you think it will be different now?" he asks her as she gets under the blankets and embraces him from behind, "with the cylons."
And it's something she tries not to think about, because she can die now, really die, and she has worked hard to be where she is, who she is, with whom she is... and the fact that there are others out there that look exactly the same as her doesn't really change a single bit of that.
"I don't know," she says while planting a kiss between his shoulder blades, "I don't think it matters."
Helo gives her heat and she buries herself in his back feeling safe, and loved, and whole.
"Maybe you're right."
She probably is, because there are bad humans and good cylons and every shade of gray in between, and in the end every single one of them, no matter how they were born, would have to face the others, and face themselves in the mirror, and face their own God one day.
Earth brought them all together so maybe, they could realize that they are not so different after all. At least some of them.
That's the beauty of Earth.
If it just weren't so frakking cold…
oOo
Adama/Tigh
Laura is resting in the tent so he walks around the frozen land, dodging ruins of old civilizations that look like the ruins of their hopes.
"This frakking planet is a big frozen piece of shit."
Saul's voice at his back makes him feel tense and on guard all over again. He also feels betrayed, and sad, and nauseated and probably a little bit depressed but he has no intention of going near that anytime soon so he doesn't turn around and doesn't answer, he just keeps walking trying to locate any thin stick that could help him rebuild his model ship. Again.
"You know you'll have to talk to me eventually. There's not much to do around here."
He clenches his hands and grits his teeth but still doesn't turn around.
"I don't have anything to say to you."
"Well, I frakking do."
His voice is hard and his pronunciation the same as a drunken sailor, as always has been. It's a little too much to recognize him and doesn't know at all who his old brother in arms is anymore. So he keeps walking and does not turn around.
"I never knew!" he shouts at his back. "And even if I had, I wouldn't have changed a single thing." His words resound at the near mountains. "I'd still have fought those frakking bastard toasters to death!"
And he believes him. He believes him but still can't talk to him and still can't turn around.
"Bill!" he calls him and he stops in his tracks, "I'm still with you against the bad guys!"
The sun is reaching its peak and Laura should be about to wake up for her medicine. He reaches down and picks up two thin sticks that maybe, maybe not, could help him with his goddamned ship that he probably should just send to hell, and then he begins to walk back to the camp.
"It's getting too hard to distinguish who the bad guys are anymore," he says when passes near Saul.
And he never turns around.
oOo
Kara/Anders
The camp has a larger tent with stones as chairs and bigger stones as tables where you can always find some cards game action and acceptable booze. It's not much but for Kara Trace is enough.
Sometimes she goes there alone, sometimes she goes with a bunch of pilots, most of the times she goes there with Lee. She never goes there with Anders but sometimes she finds him there.
"So you're going to leave me," he says as if it were some kind of acceptable greeting.
She drinks her booze in one smooth movement and leaves her glass and Anders behind, dodging him.
"I already left you, Sam."
She walks trough the crowd and zips up her coat before stepping out into the bright sun and the cold air.
"Why?" he asks.
She stops and turns to face him even when she doesn't want to because that's who she is.
"I never lied to you."
Anders comes near her and talks softly and easy as if that were what it would take to bring her back.
"I haven't changed," he explains and tries to touch her face with his hand but she retreats, "I'm not different from who I was when we married."
And that's wrong on so many levels. This marriage has been wrong on so many levels that she snorts before talking again.
"But you are, Anders." You were always just the easiest way. Uncomplicated. You're not that anymore," she says and turns around before speaking again over her shoulder, "I never lied to you."
She walks to get back to her tent where Lee maybe will be waiting for her to help her get warm or distracted. Probably both.
"I love you," she hears him says but she never gets back.
She would never be that person again.
oOo