Written for the livejournal community bsg epics. Written for inspiration day: deleted scenes, I chose Helo as a character and wicked_sassy gave me Kobol's last gleaming as an episode.
Don't own anything.
She lies in front of him vulnerable, wounded, pleading silently(almost) for him to just end it.
He should do it, should just shoot her and go on, forget anything had ever happened; deny it for the rest of his life. The silence stretches out between them as the minutes tick by and still neither moves. Any minute now, he thinks, someone else will come by, any minute now one of he- it's friends will come by to save her and he will be standing there vulnerable because he was unable to shoot her. His friends, his crew, would tell him to just do it, kill the thing that tricked him. But he can't.
He won't be remembered as this, the idiot who couldn't do it, he knows, for his friends he's dead already anyway, what does it matter how it happened?
She's not Boomer, he knows this, she can't be, Boomer flew away and never came back. He should have seen it, should have realized that it couldn't possibly be her, not only would she have never come back for him but the Galactica needed her. He should have realized it, should have known; there were differences, though subtle ones, that he can now see but could not see then.
Because he wanted it to be her, he wanted to mean so much to someone that they were willing to risk their lives to come back for him. He wanted that.
Shooting her shoot not be difficult, not at all, he should just get it over with, even she (it) knows that, if the way she looks at him is any indication. She's not Boomer, no matter how much she looks like her, it's not like he's shooting his friend, and nobody will judge him. (He might.) The cylons probably saw it all, stood in the shadows watching as he said goodbye to his friend, and was left standing there, that's how they got the idea to do this. He's figured that much out.
What he hasn't figured out, what he doesn't understand is why, or even how? How did they manage to clone her or whatever it is they did – he has to believe they cloned her, if they did not then it makes Boomer a cylon and he can't think of her that way? And what happened, what changed so much, that suddenly they had to run faster? Was she trying to help him or trick him even more? Why go through all of this, what is that he had that they needed?
They've been standing in the open for too long, too much time has passed, he has to do it now or just get away.
But he can't do it, can't shoot her, he knows this, because he passed the moment of killing her without a doubt a long time ago, it is simply impossible. Because she knows the way out, because he can use her, because she looks like his friend, because it's not in him to kill in cold blood even if it's a cylon.
"Get up!" "What?" "Get up and move. And not a word."
And so they run again, her in front of him, his gun still in his hand, searching for another place to hide, the first place his eyes land on (he's done listening to her.)
"Why are you doing this? Why are you letting me live?" "I said no talking. Keep walking, I'll tell you when to stop."
They keep walking, keep going, far past the point of no return, and he's still not sure why he's letting her live. He just knows he can't do it, can't end it, can't shoot a cylon with the face of a friend. He needs her, he tells himself, she can get him of the island, past the cylons, and she is his ticket out. So shooting her is in his best interest. It has nothing to do with her. And, following the same thought, to use her he needs her well and thus he should really take a look at her wound. That also has nothing to do with her.
They stop when it starts raining and she stares at him, questioning, when he starts treating her wound.
She can get him of this island, she can get him past the cylons. He needs her for that and that alone. That's the only reason she's still alive.
(At least it's what he tells himself.)