Title: Grieving Process

Author: Ana Sedai

Rating: T (for disturbing images)

Pairing: Helo/Sharon (I'm flabbergasted that there aren't more of these.)

Disclaimer: What, you think I want to get sued? Not mine, etc. etc.

Spoilers: Huge honkin' ones for "Downloaded".

Summary: Helo tries to come to terms with the tragic mess his life has become.

It's all over.

Helo watched as the ashes of his daughter slowly drifted through space. If Sharon hadn't been waiting for him back on the Galactica, he might well have set himself to drifting, too.

He'd heard that losing a child was the closest thing to a living death that anyone ever faced, but now it was his reality. He wanted to cry, scream, anything to get rid of the huge frakking hole that had taken up the space where his heart used to be.

On Caprica, when he'd first found out he was going to be a father, he'd just stared at Sharon, uncertain how to react. He'd been shocked, terrified, thrilled, and anxious, all at once. How could anyone raise a kid in a world like this? Yet, what choice did they have?

So, he'd decided to be happy. There really wasn't any other option. He'd even almost reached a kind of acceptance that maybe things wouldn't be so bad after all, that they could make something of a life for themselves.

Then Starbuck showed up.

Then, all Hells broke loose.

He'd never felt self-disgust before that day. He'd never questioned his humanity or his loyalties. Before, had anyone asked him to choose between his duty as an officer and his duty as a man, he would have said that there was no choice to be made, that the two were inseparable. Looking back, he almost laughed at how naïve he'd been.

In the end, once again, he'd had no choice. For better or worse, he still loved Sharon, and the baby was a part of him. He'd made up his mind on the way back to Galactica. He would not apologize, and he would not be ashamed. He knew it would be difficult, to say the least. He'd been prepared to accept whatever decision was handed down concerning himself.

But he would be damned if he let the Commander, the President, or anyone else, harm Sharon or his child. He knew better than to think he could stop them if they finally decided to kill her, but he also knew that, if that turned out to be the case, hers wouldn't be the only body in the morgue that day.

That knowledge had scared him at first. Then, he had accepted it. He was who he was, and because of that, he would do what he had to do.

Which hadn't turned out to be much, at least right then. Since Sharon was considered a "valuable military asset", she was safe for the time being. However, the President hadn't mentioned the baby, which made him nervous. It wasn't that he hadn't understood the reasons for concern. He'd understood them all too well. But this was his baby, too, and he would not give up on it before it was even born. He'd known no one else would believe, though, so he'd remained on edge, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

And it had, just not in the way he'd expected. It wasn't until he found out what was happening on the Pegasus that he'd realized just how far he was willing to go to keep them safe. He'd known he would die for Sharon and his child. He just hadn't known he was willing to kill for them, too. He was still somewhat amazed that he'd come out of that one alive.

Unfortunately, the whole roller coaster repeated itself only a few days later. Except this time, the people he had to stop were his own shipmates, including the Admiral. When he'd been told of the President's decision to abort the baby, it took everything he had to hold himself together. Watching Sharon pace around her cell like a wild animal in a cage, screaming her rage to anyone within earshot, he'd wished, more than anything else, that he could join her.

He'd never felt so helpless in his life, as when he stood between the sickbay and ten armed Marines. He had even resorted to begging, something he was still ashamed to remember. All he could remember thinking was, Not this not this anything but this please Gods…

Once again they were granted a reprieve, by Gaius Baltar of all people. Helo was well-aware of the irony of the situation. His own child was alive only by virtue of being useful to someone else. At the time, he'd been too relieved to be angry.

When Sharon had gone into labor, among all the other emotions that had been spinning through his head, the foremost one had been relief. Sharon and the baby would be safe now. The President may have been willing to terminate the pregnancy, but even she would stop short of killing an infant, no matter its parentage. Bolstering his optimism with that certainty, he'd concentrated on helping Sharon get through the delivery.

He'd refused to let himself worry about the statistics regarding premature infants. The baby's blood had cured end-stage terminal cancer, for frak's sake. Surely a little thing like a weeks-early delivery, or even malformed lungs, wasn't anything to get too upset over. After the C-section, when it seemed that both of them would be okay, he'd let himself feel truly happy for the first time since…well, since Sharon had told him she loved him.

He had marveled at how tiny Hera was, how perfect. If someone had told him a year ago that he would be cooing and grinning like an idiot at his own daughter, he would've asked for a shot of whatever it was they'd been drinking. He was holding the woman he loved, watching their beautiful, mostly healthy child, and no matter the circumstances, he couldn't imagine wanting anything more than what he had right then. Life had been just about as perfect as it could be.

It lasted for six hours.

When he'd come back from CAP to check on his girls, Cottle had been waiting for him outside the sickbay. One look at his face, and Helo felt his stomach drop to his feet.

"Lieutenant, I'm very sorry…"

He hadn't waited to hear the rest. He dashed into the room and yanked back the curtain around Hera's cubicle. His heart had shriveled when he took in the sight before him.

Sharon was sitting next to the bassinette, weeping. The small figure inside wasn't moving at all. For a second, he could swear that his lungs had been ripped out of his chest. He felt time slow to a crawl as he moved closer.

This can't be happening. Not now, not when we've come so far.

He stood next to Sharon and put a hand on her shoulder, as much to steady himself as to comfort her. He couldn't take his eyes off his daughter's tiny body.

She looks so cold in there...

His eyes were burning, and when he finally took a breath the detached part of his brain was almost alarmed at how shaky it was. Cottle quietly came up and stood before them, his expression a study in compassion.

"I don't understand. She was doing so well."

He heard his own voice, but it seemed like it was coming from a great distance.

"No, she wasn't. I tried to tell you that. Her lungs never fully developed. She finally went into respiratory distress. We couldn't get her intubated in time. We lost her. I'm sorry."

Cottle's normal tone of annoyed concern had been replaced by one of genuine empathy. He hated it. Sharon looked up at Helo, her face crumpling with the weight of her grief.

"I should've been here."

She was crying too hard to say anything else.

No. No way. He was not going to let her blame herself for this. She was still recovering from her own surgery, for the Gods' sake.

"Sharon. Sharon, listen. You've lost a lot of blood..."

She ignored him, turning her head to glare daggers at Cottle. Seeing the look on her face, Helo knew he had never been as scared of her as he was right then.

"You murdered her."

Okay, that did it. Shoving his own grief to the back of his mind, he focused on defusing the situation before she did something that they'd all regret.

"Sharon, come on."

She would have none of it.

"Who ordered it? Adama? The President? Who!"

Cottle's face now looked like it had been carved from stone.

"I don't kill patients. We did the best we could, but she's dead. And that's all there is to it. I should be able to release the ashes to you in a few hours."

The ashes.

He'd picked exactly the wrong words to say. With a growl, she had leaped to her feet and grabbed Cottle by the throat.

"Murderer!" she screamed.

He hadn't thought she could move so fast so soon after major surgery. Jumping into the fray, he'd tried to pry her fingers from around the Doc's neck. But her rage had given her even more strength than normal, and he wasn't having any luck.

"Sharon!"

She was a woman possessed. Her eyes were wild, unseeing. All she knew was that her child was dead, and this was the man responsible.

"Die!"

Cottle's face was turning blue. He was choking, clutching at her hands. In another few seconds, his windpipe was going to collapse.

"Sharon, please!"

He wasn't getting through to her. If Cottle died, they'd airlock her before the day was out, asset or no asset.

Fortunately, the Marines had busted in then, dragging her off the Doc. He had wrapped his arms around her, trying to bring her back to him, but she'd just kept screaming.

"You're murderers! You're all murderers!"

Cottle had collapsed to his knees, gasping for air. With one hand on his throat, he pointed the other at the door.

"Get her out of here."

It had taken all of them to get her outside. She was kicking and screaming and crying, and he'd felt his heart break clean in two when he'd heard her last desperate plea before she had given way completely to sobs.

"Give me back my baby!"

She had stopped crying by the time they got back to her cell. He'd tried to protest that she should still be in the hospital recovering, but the Marine in charge had stonily retorted that if she was well enough to nearly choke a man to death, then she was well enough to finish recovering in the brig.

They had let him take her inside by himself, at least. No reason not to. She had stopped struggling, and her expression had looked almost dead.

He'd prodded her towards the bed, and she sat down mechanically. Kneeling in front of her, he'd taken her face in his hands, looking for some glimmer of emotion. At first, there was nothing. When he'd smoothed her hair back, however, she bit her lip, and he'd watched as silent tears began spilling down her face. She then reached out to him and stroked his cheek, and he'd realized that his own face was wet.

They'd collapsed in each other's arms, weeping for the daughter they'd barely known, the daughter that had been, for a few hours, the source of such incredible hope. They hadn't spoken. There wasn't anything to say.

After a few minutes he'd felt a tap on his shoulder. He looked up to see a marine looking down at him, an expression that might have been mistaken for pity on his face.

"Sir, it's time to go."

Of course. Can't leave the grieving parents together too long. Might decide to do something stupid.

He leaned back from Sharon, wiping his face with his arm as he did so.

"I have to go now. I'll be back tomorrow, okay?"

She'd nodded, her gaze focused on the strip of decking between them. Feeling like a five-ton elephant was sitting on his chest he'd stood up, followed the Marine out the door, and promptly headed for his bunk. He suddenly felt very, very tired.

Of course he couldn't sleep. After an hour of tossing and turning, trying to forget the last few hours long enough to get some rest, he'd remembered that Cottle had said something about releasing Hera's ashes. That meant he would have to do something with them.

With the ashes of his daughter's body.

Suddenly he'd started retching. He'd made it to the head just in time to vomit his last meal into the nearest toilet. When it was over, he'd rested his burning forehead again the cool tile, struggling to not give into the emptiness he'd felt preying on his mind.

He'd thought of Sharon. He had to look after her, now more than ever. Gods only knew what she might do if she kept thinking that they'd...murdered Hera.

That was one trail of thought that he'd refused to consider going down. No way. If he did, sooner or later he'd end up either going crazy from paranoia, or shooting someone.

Shakily, he'd gotten to his feet and thrown some cold water on his face. The man looking back at him from the mirror had scared him for a second.

He'd looked old.

He'd looked broken.

Almost dispassionately, he'd wondered whether all fathers who'd lost their children looked like this, then decided they probably did.

Enough. Enough now.

Straightening his shoulders, he'd headed for the flight deck. He'd known what he had to do, and he'd known who to ask to help him do it. He'd talk with Sharon in the morning.

The last glittering speck had now vanished from sight. He took one last look at his daughter's burial ground, ducked his head back inside the Raptor, and closed the door. He turned to face the only other mourner at this sad little funeral.

Chief's face bore a look of infinite sadness. He didn't say anything, though, just as he hadn't said anything when Helo had asked him to do this. He had just been at the ship at the time Helo had said. Helo was glad that he had agreed. It wouldn't have felt right if he hadn't been there. In a weird way, Hera was his daughter, too. The two men sat in their respective seats and readied the ship to head back to the Galactica.

He had thought that he would feel some closure after this, but there was none to be had. He hoped it would come with time. He couldn't imagine living with this chasm inside his soul forever.

"Galactica, this is Raptor 325. We're preparing to approach, over."

"Raptor 325, this is Galactica. You are cleared for approach and landing, over."

With that, he fired the engines and pointed them towards the ship. Helo, a pilot, asoldier, and father of a dead child, now had to prepare to try and carry on with the rest of his life.