Synopsis: A three-part hauntings fic. Dee recieves a visit from Billy before her suicide. Felix recieves a visit from Dee before his mutiny. Boomer recieves a visit from Felix while she is locked in the Brig. They reach out towards their respective ghosts. They reach for a place where bullets can no longer wound them.

Characters: Dee, Billy, Felix and Boomer, with mentions of others.

Rating: PG-13 (warnings for dark themes)

Spoilers: up to an including 4x17.

Where bullets can no longer wound us

"What....what are you doing?"

Dee ignored his voice; the voice belonging to the man who wasn't there. No, not a man really. Just that stammering boy who used to follow her around like lost puppy. She thought that she had forgotten his voice. Why was she hearing it now? Why should she be hearing voices at all? It was as if she was going crazy...

"Dualla?" the voice persisted. "Dee please…"

"I heard you, Billy," she hissed, a tight whisper. "Now shut up."

"Sorry. I just…what are you doing with that gun?"

Dee pursed her lips, refusing to answer. She finished loading the sidearm, giving it one last polish so the gun metal felt smooth to touch and gleamed in the lamplight. Then she returned it to her locker, placing it on the shelf where it would be easiest to reach. Where she could grab for it without having to think.

Good. Now that the preparations were out of the way, Dee could concentrate on making herself pretty and making herself happy...just one last time. She took the bottle of nail varnish out from the side pocket of her kit bag and returned to the table. This little bottle of polish had lasted Dee since they had escaped from the Colonies; so rare it was that she had occasion to take off her uniform and doll herself up.

"So are you just going to ignore me? As usual."

Dee's head snapped back at the accusation. Immediately, she regretted having lifted her eyes. There was Billy Keikeya sitting across the table from her, wearing that familiar striped shirt and the sad little tie that hung loose around his collar. His cheeks were glowing. He always blushed when she looked him in the face.

"I'm going out on a date, Billy," she told him firmly. "Yes, a date with Lee Adama. And you're not going to spoil it for me this time, okay?"

Dee fell silent, shaking her head. She turned her attention back to her hands, painting her fingernails with the clear shimmering gloss. Why was she talking to him anyway? Billy wasn't there. Billy couldn't be there. He was dead…over three years now. That meant that Dee must be seeing things. It meant that she was crazy. No, she wouldn't think that. She told herself again…just keep it together; try not to fall apart. Her friends had always said she was the voice of reason on this ship. Dee had worn her sanity like a badge of honour, a medal that she hung over her heart. It was something she could offer to her leaders when they were losing their heads. She could tell them the things they needed to hear. She had been doing it for long.

"Is it because they let you down, Dee?" whispered Billy, finishing her thoughts for her. "Is it because they broke their promise to you?"

Dee's fingers began to shake. There were still the grains of sand beneath her nails. Filthy grey sand from that burnt grey waste of a planet. Their promised land. The new home which the Admiral had promised to them so long ago. The promise that Dee had insisted he kept. The promise that she had later passed onto Lee, urging him to continue the mission in his father's place. Dee had always been loyal and faithful to them and their promise. She had trusted the Adamas to lead the fleet to Earth. She had believed in it and that belief had kept her strong. It had kept her sane.

"So what is this then?" Billy needled. "Some twisted form of revenge?"

Dee took a breath, calming herself. She blew on her nails.

"I'm not hurting anyone," she reasoned. "Lee and the Old Man have bigger things to worry about now. They'll suck it up. They'll move on. That's what the Adamas do. Besides, just a few months ago they thought they had lost their Kara. If they can get over that then I doubt they'll cry too long over little old me."

Dee raised her head, staring coolly at Billy, daring him to call her selfish. Billy narrowed his eyes in reproach. From the look on his face you would think she was planning a murder not a suicide.

"Not hurting anyone," he snorted. "What about him?"

Billy inclined his head to the bunk where Felix lay twisting in his sleep. Dee followed his stare, wincing at the film of sweat that clung to her friend's grey skin; the tension that pinched his face even now. She had noticed that Felix's sleep was troubled ever since the trial; that night when they had started sharing a bunkroom again. Now the tingling of his phantom leg seemed to have crept into his dreams. A fire under his skin. A fire that she couldn't put out.

Dee sighed and turned away from the bunk.

"I'll wait till he's gone," she murmured. "He'll be okay..."

"Is he okay now?" he asked her, pointedly.

"This is my choice, Billy. Aren't I allowed to make this choice?"

He frowned at her steadily. "I took a bullet for you, Dee."

"That was your choice. I never asked you to…"

Dee felt the tears threatening in her eyes. She rose to her feet, turning back to her locker. She had never really recovered from that night when she had left poor Billy in that place where bullets could no longer wound him. She had never told anyone that all those tears that she had cried at Lee Adama's bedside were really for Billy Keikeya. They never knew that she had clung onto Apollo's hand only to keep herself sane.

"It was a mistake, Billy," she muttered. "The Old Man thought he could save us by giving them Boomer's body. He took a risk, he made a choice…and it was the wrong choice. We make mistakes and people die. Sometimes we make promises that we just can't keep. And people die. It can't be helped."

Dee closed her eyes and sighed heavily. She accepted their mistakes and their broken promises. Then she lifted her wedding ring from its hook on her locker door. Her dainty hands were missing this one last piece of decoration. She returned to the table and held the ring in her palm, displaying it to Billy.

"That's pretty," he remarked, forgiving her in his turn. "Much prettier than my high school debate ring, that's for sure. I wish I could have been the one to give it to you." Billy swallowed. "Do you ever think about what it might have been like if you had said 'yes' to me? Do you ever wonder, Dee?"

Did she ever wonder what it would be like to be married to a man who had eyes only for her? A man who never turned his head to look at other girls across the room? A man who blushed at her because he thought she was beautiful and not because he felt ashamed whenever he was around her?

Dee signed again. Billy didn't have to rub it in.

"Do you ever wonder about us, Anastasia?"

He reached for her hand across the table, his ghostly caress sending shivers over her skin. She slipped the ring onto her finger and made a new vow to Billy and to the gun in her locker.

She made her solemn vow.

"I do..." she said.

Felix braced himself against the shower door, struggling to make it out of the cubicle without slipping on the wet floor. Last week he had sent a message down to the technicians asking if one of them might have a seat fitted or at least some railings. So far nothing had been done, so his daily ablutions continued to be an ordeal. Naked and dripping, Felix hobbled over to the sinks, leaning clumsily against the counter while he patted himself dry and then coiled the towel around his waist. There was nobody else in the shower room to see him in this moment of helpless indignity. It was 0400 hours. The tiny hours of morning. Felix had taken to washing in the dead of the night.

He raised his eyes to the mirror. His face was pale but clean. He had shaved earlier in the evening. His curls were beginning to look a little wild again, but he had no time for a haircut. He reached for the soap and the nailbrush.

At that moment something caught Felix's attention in the corner of the mirror; the girl in the black dress who was slouching against the locker doors, regarding him fondly. Reflected in the glass, Dee looked young and radiant again…just as she had looked only moments before pulling the trigger.

"Look at that…" Felix muttered, "…little Ana's got her smile back."

He shook his head cynically and began cleaning his hands.

"You wouldn't believe how quickly that glow faded from your cheeks," Felix told Dee as she took a tentative step towards him. "You didn't look so pretty lying in a puddle of your own blood and piss…"

Dee halted, wincing. "I'm sorry you had to see that."

"I've seen worse," Felix shrugged. "I've smelt worse. Four bodies in a Raptor and no air to breathe...have you ever tasted death in your mouth, Dee? Have you ever sucked it into your lungs? We were lost in the cold and dark. We were beyond the red line. They left us stranded, Dee. You weren't there to call us home."

"But Louis brought you home," Dee reminded him, forcing another smile. "He wants to take care of you, Felix. Why won't you let him care for you? You deserve it."

"It's not enough to stop it. The reckoning will still come, whether he loves me or not. Do you think Louis could have saved me from the Circle? No. It never stops. But at least this time I'm ready for it."

Dee came to stand beside him. Felix watched her steadily in the mirror. He didn't dare to turn around lest she vanish and leave him here alone. This room used to be their old meeting place. The little airy corner of the ship where they could tell each other jokes, exchange their gossip and murmur their coded secrets.

"Are you going to tell me what this is about?" asked Dee, playing the concerned sister with him. "Are you mad at me, Felix?"

He laughed bitterly. "I can't stay mad at you, little Ana."

She leaned in close, still trying to share her smile with him. "Remember what you used to say to me? If people are upset then they should go through the proper channels..."

Felix sighed at the faint memory. Yes, there was once a time when he had been the sensible one, trying to keep Dee from plotting too many rebellions. How strange it seemed now.

"I was wrong," he confessed. "There are no channels, no system. There are no rules to be obeyed anymore. The world is broken, Dee. It needs to be taken apart and put back together again. Isn't that what you used to say?"

Dee shook her head, not liking how he was twisting her words.

"Oh no. Don't you dare make this about me, Felix…" she hissed reproachfully, "You know that I wouldn't want you to do this. You know how I feel about Tom Zarek..."

"He's the one who can change things."

"The man's a butcher!" she snapped, her voice echoing through his mind. "He doesn't want freedom or change. He wants his blaze of glory. He wants a bloodbath. How are you going to justify that to yourself?"

He grimaced at the thought, struggling to rationalise. "There were thousands who died on New Caprica, Dee...but we fought against oppression then and the war still isn't over..."

Dee blinked worriedly and stared down into the sink.

"You know that's the third time you've scrubbed your nails?"

He shivered and nodded, mentally forcing himself to put down the brush and the soap. There had been so much blood on that frakking Raptor; so much blood that had poured from Dee's fragile skull. Sometimes Felix could still smell it on his skin and see its stains under his fingernails. It never stopped.

"We're not going back to New Caprica," Felix said defiantly, reaching down to claw at his stumped leg. "Something has got to be done."

Dee glanced down and shook her head at his itching.

"I know you still feel it," she said. "I know you can still feel your leg and the bullet they put in it. They shot you as a mutineer and I know how much that hurts you. It doesn't mean this is the only way you can…"

"No…no! If I had only plotted that jump faster they never would have brought that cylon baseship into the fleet. I could have prevented it. I could have stopped it."

Dee desperately shook her head. "This is going too far, Felix. You can't go up against the Admiral. You have to trust him now...you need to believe in him..."

"I believed in my President once too. Where did that get us?"

"Please...please don't do this," she begged him. "You'll only get yourself killed. This isn't the sort of person you are, Felix. You're good…you're a loyal officer…"

"And what should I be loyal to, Dee?!" he demanded. "How can I be faithful? Isn't it better that I should die as an insurgent rather than as a collaborator? Well...either way they'll call me a traitor. They don't get it! None of them realise. This…this is about truth…and...and justice…that is what I have to be loyal to now the Old Man is betraying his Oath. He swore he would protect the people of the Colonies, but he...he's letting the cylons walk all over us. It's the same thing! It all happened before and now it's happening again…and I just…"

"Felix, you're crying," said Dee, fear in her voice.

"I'm fine…" he murmured.

Felix took a breath. He cupped his hands under the cold tap and splashed his face with water, washing away the hot tears that were streaming his cheeks. He turned from the mirror and crossed the empty room to his locker. Yes, the room was empty. Dee's presence was nothing more than a symptom of his morpha withdrawal, his sleep loss and his loneliness. Felix dressed himself as quickly as his disability would allow. He dressed in the uniform he would soon be dishonouring. No, he wouldn't think like that. He needed to keep focused on the plan. In the next hour or so he would be meeting with the marines to liberate the Vice President from his cell. Then Racetrack would fly Zarek to the Colonial One and he would have to cover for them in the CIC. After that...it was likely to get very complicated.

"This is madness," whispered Dee to him, making one final plea. "You're too angry. You're too upset. You shouldn't have got out of bed this morning."

"I can't sleep when there are people dying."

He was thinking of New Caprica again, he was thinking of the Raptor, but he was also thinking of Anastasia and the gunshot that had fired from his bunkroom and the stain on the wall by his bed that just wouldn't shift. Felix glanced over his shoulder. His vision of Dee was still caught in the mirror. She still looked beautiful inside her prison of glass. She was still glowing in a place where bullets could no longer wound her…part of Felix longed to join her there.

"It won't stop, Dee," he said. "So I can't rest. I have to see this through. I…I suppose it'll be over very quickly…one way or another. Can I rest when it is over, Dee? Will you tell me when it's time?"

Dee closed her eyes and nodded solemnly.

"Yes Felix...I'll call you home."

From her place in the cell, Boomer could hear everything.

Cavil had made the upgrades to her ears. There were still limits to their capacity. There were basic design flaws that couldn't be overcome. But her hearing could still stretch beyond the confines of the brig, through the walls and ceilings, to listen in on conversations in nearby rooms. Boomer could choose which sounds to focus on; she could turn their volume up or down. She could even fade them all out if she wanted some rest. Not that she slept anymore. Cavil had erased that function too. But lying down and closing her eyes was still the best way to project. It was almost like dreaming, though she would never call it that. Dreaming was for humans.

Boomer had decided to leave the house on Picon for a while. There was only so much time she could spend there. She didn't want to lapse into sentimentality and lose her nerve. So for now Boomer was projecting into a dusty candlelit tent on New Caprica. This tent wasn't one of her own imaginary realms of escape. She had downloaded this memory from another Number Eight. She often stole memories from her model. It expanded her faculties and perceptions. Boomer had never downloaded from Athena though, even while she knew Athena had stolen all of her old memories before she proceeded to steal her life. No, the Eights who accessed Athena's memories always ended up weak and lovesick. Boomer had no use for those emotions. There were other things she could steal from Athena.

Felix Gaeta was sitting across from her in the tent. His skin looked rich and warm in the candlelight. He was dressed in a black suit like a guest at a funeral. He stared at her through the shadows, tipping his head in a respectful nod. Felix took a cigar from his front pocket, blazed it up and handed it over to her.

"Welcome home, Sharon," he said, his smile soft and nostalgic.

"Thanks Felix," she muttered. "Looks like I missed all the excitement, huh?"

He nodded. "You could say that. There's a lot that's been happening."

Boomer winced. She had heard about it. She had listened into the chatter in the rooms closest to her. It seemed like the fleet had fallen apart since their discovery of Earth. Many were disturbed and upset by the sudden alliance with the rebel cylons. There had been an uprising onboard the Galactica and now their ranks were thin. Many of the mutineers were still locked down here in the brig and the rest of them had been shipped off to the Astral Queen. For the most part Boomer had ceased to care about the troubles of her old crewmates, but there were two pieces of news that had caused her to catch her breath.

"I…I heard about Dee's suicide and your execution," said Boomer, shaking her head. "I can't even believe I'm saying those words. I always liked you kids. Everyone liked you. In the old days…me and Helo used to call you the sweethearts of the CIC. If we ever got called up to the bridge we knew that the Colonel and Old Man would most likely bust our asses…but we could always be sure Felix and Dee would give us a bright smile and tell us we were doing a great job." She took a drag on the cigar; tasting the ashes in her mouth and sighing smoke into the tent. "I guess that's another happy memory of mine that's gone to hell. Don't worry; I've got plenty of them."

"The world is frakked," said Felix with a tight frown. "I tried to put it right, but it just became more broken."

Boomer snorted. "I know the feeling. We learned our lessons here on New Caprica, Felix. We learned the hard way. You were right to resist the alliance. Humans and cylons aren't meant to be together. Why not leave those old wounds behind and exist in separate corners of the universe? Nothing else works. The Old Man's making a mistake if he thinks he can trust those lying machines. Someone had to rebel against it. I'll bet they never thought it would be you."

"Never trust the quiet ones..." said Felix, tapping the side of his head, his eyes dancing with amusement. "I had my chance. I could have shot him in the CIC just like you. But I never wanted to see him die. I always loved the Old Man."

"I loved him too. Do you think Adama remembers that we loved him?"

Felix shook his head, regretfully. "No...I think he remembers our betrayals. I think he feels our bullets in his chest and he forgets the people we were. He forgets that we were his kids."

Boomer shared a bitter smile with Felix. At least he was being honest with her, even though it hurt to hear. She passed the cigar back to him and reclined on the mattress.

"So how did they do it?" she asked in morbid curiosity. "How did they execute the Officer of the Watch? I'm just wondering, Felix, because I'm sure Adama and Roslin are drawing up my own death warrant as we speak."

Felix inhaled deeply from the cigar and then released a shaky laugh.

"It was the firing squad at dawn, Sharon. Don't you love the old traditions?"

"Yeah, I used to. I hope they aimed for your heart. I hope they didn't shoot you in the gut and leave you to bleed out on the floor." She grimaced, rubbing her belly. It still pained her sometimes, even in this new body free of scars. "Did we deserve our deaths, Felix? It was those other cylons that slaughtered mankind, not me. Those cylons are walking around free on this ship. What did we do that was so much worse? Do they think this is justice?"

"Justice?" Felix rolled his eyes, smiling cynically. "This fleet has no time for justice, Sharon. But revenge? They'll always make time for revenge."

"Of course. What does it matter what the others did? I'll always be the cylon who shot the Old Man. They'll never stop hating me for that."

Felix nodded. "Right…even though it wasn't your fault."

Boomer squinted at him. "What did you say?"

"When you shot the Old Man in the CIC. You yelled that you didn't know what was happening. I was there, Sharon. I remember. I could see you had no control. I knew it must have been your programming."

Boomer felt her eyes filling with tears. She swallowed, forcing them back. Nobody had ever told her it wasn't her fault. They had all pointed their fingers and accused her until she had come to believe she was as guilty as they assumed. Now she wanted to believe what Felix was telling her, but it was too hard.

"No, I knew it," she hissed. "I knew I was going to hurt someone. I tried to force myself not to think about it. I didn't want to believe it. Then I saw all those other Sharons on that baseship. I couldn't fight it anymore. The Old Man reached out to shake my hand and the feeling took over me. Was it my programming? I...I don't know. I still felt human then. Maybe I just went crazy like humans do? Like when you went crazy in the CIC, Felix..."

He shifted in his chair. "What makes you think I was crazy?"

"Because I know what your Eight did," she said, ignoring his discomfort. "I was a little shocked when I found this memory, Felix. I didn't think that you liked women. Or cylons for that matter..."

He sighed, pinching his brow. "I liked you. I always liked you. I didn't realise that the other Sharons weren't the same. I was just...I was blind. And that Eight used it to kill people."

"It wasn't your fault, Felix. That is what machines do. When I brought them to New Caprica I thought we could live together with humans. I thought I could be human again. But machines aren't meant to live. The purpose of machines is to experiment. That's what we ended up doing on that planet. That's what the Eight did to you. She took all your innocence and all your weaknesses and she dissected you. She was fascinated by you, Felix. She wanted to know what made you hope, what made you love, what made you believe. She turned you into a weapon; into a sleeper agent like me. She could use you to hurt people without you even knowing it, even though you feared it deep inside. I know how that feels, Felix. But I also know how she felt. She wasn't a monster. She was a machine. It's what machines do."

Felix raised his head and looked her in the eyes. A hint of animosity had crept into his stare. He stubbed out the cigar and crossed his arms.

"Is that how you'll justify what you're planning to do to Helo and Athena's child?" he asked. "Is that what you'll tell yourself when Cavil dissects her innocence?"

Boomer felt her heart trembling at his words. Then she remembered that she was a cylon and Felix was a human. Of course they would never agree on anything. They weren't really friends. They never could be.

"What a shame you lack the capacity for understanding, Felix..." she teased. "You used to be such a good little scientist too. If only they hadn't shot you I could have taken you back with me and let Cavil look inside your defective human brain."

He snorted. "Cavil. What is it you see in Cavil, Sharon? Do you love him?"

Felix said it like an accusation. Boomer was sick of being accused.

"Love is for humans," she spat back at him. "I loved a man once...before I knew what I was. And the man I loved betrayed me. He hurt me more than the bullet did. But he let me die in his arms and that was the last time I felt love. The girl that was Sharon Valerii died. She went to a place where bullets can no longer wound her; a little house on Picon where the sun always shines through the windows. That's the only place she lives now. They didn't resurrect the girl, only a machine. Cavil is teaching me how to be a better machine. He accepts me when the rest of the world won't. Cavil makes me feel safe. He says he is impressed of my progress. Sometimes I call him the Old Man..."

Boomer fell silent. She realised just how disturbed she was sounding. Felix was still staring at her. His eyes were wide and fearful in the shadows. She could remember Felix looking at her this way when she had asked him for more names, when she squeezed his hand, when she held him down in bed. Humans were such fragile creatures. Boomer rose to her feet, crossing the space between them. She stroked a hand through Felix's soft dark curls. His hair felt like Hera's hair to touch.

"She's not a little girl," she assured him. "She's a thing."

Neither the humans nor the cylons cared about the girl. Boomer knew this for sure, because she had been a girl herself once...a child of both races. She had been one of Adama's kids on the Galactica and the youngest daughter of the cylon nation. She had been used, wounded and betrayed by both of her families. They had dissected her innocence. They had left her to bleed. Why should Hera deserve any better? After all...she was just another experiment.

Felix caught her hand. "You need to remember who you are, Sharon. In the end...we all realise who we are."

Boomer shivered as he placed a kiss on her knuckles. She let go of his hand, pulling back from her projection, returning to the confines of her cell. She wrapped her arms around her chest. She was trembling like a little girl.

"I…I'm a machine," she said.

The End