Timeline/Spoilers: Set during the Mini-Series
A/N: This is unbeta-ed; so any and all mistakes are mine alone!
Disclaimer: Ron Moore and Universal Studios owneverything BSG. No infringement intended. Oh – and I hijacked the title from a ST: Voy episode… ST: Voy is also not mine, just in case there was any doubt there.
Future's End
By Socket
Laura sits still. So still. She thinks, if she doesn't move, if she doesn't breathe, if she tries not to exist, then, for a few seconds, she won't feel.
The weight of her decisions crushes her resolve and Roslin covers her face as images of families and individuals flash before her eyes like a slide show – a slide show of the people they're leaving behind. The people she's deserting.
She wishes them a quick death as her ship flies to safety. She wishes she could do something; but there is no choice – if she doesn't leave them behind, they will all be annihilated and so she takes a deep breath, pushes the happy-family images away and bits her lower lip until all she can feel is the pain in her lip. It blots out everything else.
Laura sinks her teeth in deeper as she hears the voices, the screams, the angry words of forsaking coming from the cockpit. And she wishes it were different, but it's not. There is nothing she can do to change it. And she may be reaching out for the rest of her days, trying to make amends for the loss of life, but today, right now, she can't think of that. She has to keep in mind the bigger picture – survival at all costs.
The memory, their memory will haunt her, but so will the memory of their whole society, Kobol's whole way of life for generations… but Laura can bear anything, she knows she can. She's lost her own family; her friends… and she can bear it because she has to, because there is no alternative.
She's known fear, but not like this – not with every part of her being. And she wants to shout; to release it, but she sits motionless.
She doesn't cry. She never has. She wants to keep her restraint because loosing control is too dangerous. She needs to stay calm, stay cool… keep thinking, don't feel, just keep thinking…
And she feels stripped. Flayed. But she almost got them killed a few hours ago… almost… and she won't make that mistake again. Compassion had been a mistake – trying to save everyone had been an error. And she wants to help as many people as she can, but she has to draw a line, it's her duty. Her new function, her only function, is to protect the majority. She cannot afford to gamble with humanities future. She doesn't have the right.
Laura sits immobile, staring into space. There have been many things in her life that didn't make sense, that she's never understood… but this… this situation is beyond all comprehension and she knows one day it will hit her, but not now. The enormity of it all will crush her, but that day is far off in the future, if she has a future.
She takes it one breath at a time. One thought, one step… and she can do this; if she concentrates… she can do this. Everything she has learnt, everything she believes, it comes to the fore and Laura lets it take over; this hidden reserve she didn't know she housed. Because when there is no alternative, you have to go on.
The End