There is a junction in the halls. It is where three corridors from different directions meet. It is a joining. A point where you must move just to left or just to right to continue ahead. You must alter course. It is not a straight line.
It is a conflux of events. Three streams (and a rivulet) all flowing into one single lake. It is against all odds that this should happen during waking hours, that it should happen at all. It is late. It is quiet. Hera could not sleep, so Athena walks the halls with her to ease her. A child not yet born is restless, so Caprica walks the halls to soothe her. The results of tests are looming, so Laura walks the halls to calm her mind.
They approach the junction. Each arrives at the same point but from a different angle.
They all slow, then halt. To go forward they must pass at least one of the others. Or go back. Alone. Three women and a child all from a vision, a dream, now made real in the harsh light of a sleeping Battlestar. This should not be. This is not made for waking hours.
Hera is sleepy on her mother's shoulder but she sees these other women. She knows them both. She fears neither.
Athena's eyes flick between the women before her. The woman who stole her child and the woman destined to repeat the act. She holds Hera tighter. She takes a step back. Then stops. Hera begins to squirm, clambering to be put down, to put her feet on the ground. Athena permits it, though does not recall the decision to. Hera stands, a hand in her mother's.
There is a moment when it happens. When reality hits dream, hits memory, and shakes out the truth from what is imagined. The shape of things to come transformed into the shape of how things are.
Three women from an Opera House of their history (it must be theirs, it must be), stand in the now, in their present (it is their present, their future unfolding).
The mother, her child by her feet.
The mother to be, her child growing strong.
The mother in name, watching over them all.
Caprica is not the Six from the Opera House. She is not. And yet she is. It is a Six connected to Gaius, and she can think of no other who it can be. But she knows it is not her. She has a child growing inside her, over-brimming a heart already filled with love. A child, a piece of her heart that she will hold in her arms. An incomparable love. She is a Six. She does not understand—they do not take love that is not theirs. Why does a vision show her doing otherwise, why is it a vision of a her that is not her that is not a sister?
Athena is and is not the Athena from the Opera House. She knows it is a vision—she has lost her child once, twice, back and forth across the divide of human and Cylon. She would chase her daughter to the ends of any Earth to save her. She has died and been reborn once for the sole purpose of doing so. She would die without the reawakening to do it again. But she knows in the Cylon part of her human heart (for this is what it has become, for which she has fought so hard) that Caprica is not the Six she sees. She is not the woman that raises her daughter into her arms, carries her away. Caprica handed her child to her. Helped her escape back to freedom, gave up her own in the process. A dream bleeding into reality led her to spill a sister's blood. The fear had been real. The vision supplanted on reality had not. She cannot take it back.
Laura is and is not the Laura from the Opera House. That Laura is healthy, can run, can chase, can feel the weight of her own hair against her shoulders. She is sick, can walk with Bill's arm beneath her fingers, can move slowly on her own, can feel the coolness of air against an exposed scalp. She knows in the dream, in reality she must protect the child. She would not steal her again—does not regret doing it before but would not repeat the action. Caprica is her friend (how strange, how true), she is not the Six that they all see. Athena is a mother, desperate to protect her child, from her, from a Six, from fate—not seeing where the dream ends and reality begins.
The streams join the ocean which feeds back into the streams. They are all connected.
Hera slips from Athena's grasp and runs to Caprica, tiny hands outstretched, fingers flexing, calling out to be picked up. Caprica takes a half-step back, a half-step forward, pushed and pulled by fear and love. Athena calls after her, takes a step into the junction. Stops when she sees the look on Caprica's face. It is not the same as the vision. It is transformed in reality. Caprica's hand reaches out to stroke the curls of Hera's hair—delicate, feather-like, barely a touch at all. Her other hand stroking over her stomach, her own child moving (awake? responding? hearing a sister's call?).
Laura steps into the junction now. She does not fear Caprica's actions. She knows this woman is her friend and trusts the purity of the love that is shining in Caprica's smile as she regards Hera. She is wary of Athena's movements, knows she is equally wary of hers (She accepts this as Athena's right, she knows now that pain and loss are not unique to humans. How do you apologise for an act you don't regret?).
Caprica takes a forward step, the child moving with her. They are all in the junction. They are within arms' reach. Hera looks between them all. She smiles at Laura, remembering her, knowing her from her waking hours as well as sleeping ones. Caprica kneels down slowly, her eyes on the child. She smiles and turns her towards Athena—"Go back to your Mommy, Hera."—encouraging her softly. She is not quick to rise again, but Laura has suddenly reached out a hand to steady her as she finds her feet.
Three streams flow into the ocean, becoming one. Athena's soul is eased. She knows this is not a ploy, knows this is how things are. That they can shape things. They are players in an eternal game, but now they know it, can rewrite the rules. There is something she must say, but cannot do it in front of her daughter. She was the first to cross from Cylon to human, to stake her claim on this new ground. Trust. She must trust. "Madam President, could you... .I need to speak with Caprica, could you..." Laura hears what is being asked, the words lodging in Athena's throat but still finding her ears. She reaches out a hand to Hera (Isis, Hera) and calls her forth, releasing Caprica as she does so. She takes the child aside, staying within sight but not within hearing. She has not the strength to lift the girl. The girl does not mind, bouncing and clapping.
"I killed Natalie."
"I know."
She had shot (firing from a dream into reality) Natalie two decks down and four corridors over. But their dead sister lies between them now (How do you apologise for an act you don't regret?). Athena is not asking forgiveness. She does not seek it, and Caprica does not offer; and such things could only be granted from a resurrected soul (such forgiveness lost forever). Some sins dirtied them all. This is what she apologises for. Athena has chosen her side and stuck. She has killed members of one of her families to protect those of the other. But Caprica is her sister, named and glorious, the sister that handed her her daughter and helped them both home. You pick your side and you stick, but it isn't enough, not anymore, not when others are coming across too, with as much of a claim as she had had... There is no straight ahead past this point. There is just to the left or just to the right, or back to where you came from. She is not one for retreat.
She reaches out, her fingers stopping just short of Caprica's rounded stomach, shaking. She is reaching to her other family—she is afraid. But Caprica closes her fingertips around hers, pulls her the rest of the way, Athena's hand against the swell. The touch is like an impact to both of their lungs—they lurch and step together. They have both killed sisters, they have both walked away from their own to become something new, they are both mothers of a new generation. They are sisters reunited, lines of divide forgotten.