Memento Mori - Latin, "remember (that you have) to die"

The Cylons were coming too fast. Lee had already ordered the rest of his squadron to fall back; Baltar, surprisingly, had done the same, making sure the Six he was fighting with was out of harm's way – when had he become so self-sacrificing? – and now they were the only two left in the corridor to cover the others' retreat. They were about to run themselves when the first ranks of Centurions advanced around the corner. Lee and Baltar sprayed their ranks with bullets, and gradually the rows began to fall – but they were still coming all too fast, and it wasn't long until both the defenders were forced to retreat under the onslaught.

Baltar didn't seem to realize that they needed to move. Like, right frakking now. Or yesterday, if possible. Still firing wildly, Lee reached out and grabbed Gaius's free arm, pulling him backwards toward a bend in the corridor.

"Damn it, Doc, we gotta get out of here!" When the words failed to galvanize the doctor into action, Lee took matters into his own hands. Taking a firmer grip on the other man's arm, he dragged him backwards until he finally saw the connecting corridor out of the corner of his eye. The second it came into view, he gave Gaius a hard shove, sending him stumbling around the corner and away from the Cylons. He moved to follow him –

Somehow, over the sound of the gunfire, he heard the clink of metal striking metal: something small and heavy landing on a solid surface. Instinct told him to move, and he did try. But it was too late.

The explosion lifted him off his feet and slammed him into the far wall with a deafening roar. His vision was nothing but a white blur, marred here and there by blurry shapes. One of them was very close, moving past him towards the others – damn it, had that idiot Baltar really come back for him? – and gradually all of the Cylon shapes began to fall.

Lee's vision was finally beginning to readjust. He blinked rapidly, trying to banish the remnants of the explosion's burning light from his eyes. It almost worked, but he couldn't quite seem to focus, and everything around him remained blurry. Maybe he'd gotten a concussion when he hit the wall. Groaning, he tried to push himself up off of the floor – and immediately, waves of pain assailed his chest, forcing him back down. When he looked to see what was wrong, he had just enough time to register a mass of red and a horrified look on the face of Gaius Baltar before he lost consciousness.

When Bill Adama had asked where they were after Kara's blind jump away from the Cylon colony, he hadn't expected the answer he'd gotten.

It was a planet. An entire solar system, in fact, but it was the closest planet that interested them the most, because it was the only one that was habitable; not habitable in the just-barely-livable way that New Caprica had been, but ideally habitable. It had ice caps at the poles, as did many planets, but between those were broad temperate regions and more than enough diverse climates to satisfy anyone's tastes. In short, it was the perfect home. And the reports were still flooding in, each sounding better than the last.

Bill moved slowly around the CIC from one station to the next, examining the readouts and test results as they came in, almost in a state of disbelief at how perfect it all sounded. Laura walked with him as he went, clinging tightly to his arm for support, but smiling serenely at the same time. She was at peace.

The practically idyllic moment was interrupted by a shipwide announcement: "Admiral Adama, report to sickbay. Admiral Adama to sickbay."

Bill froze, looking around at the occupants of the room as though seeing them for the first time. Laura was on his arm. Kara was by the FTL station, where she'd been ever since she'd jumped the ship. Tigh was on the far side of the room, looking over a readout with Ellen.

There was one missing.

"No…"

Laura realized it at the same time he did, and she immediately let go of his arm, shifting her grip to a nearby console.

"Go, Bill."

He barely waited for the words to register before he all but sprinted from the room, needing to get to sickbay as fast as possible, but at the same time, terrified of what he would find once he got there.

The first thing he noticed upon his arrival was a kind of clear division among the people in the room. While there were men and women everywhere, there only seemed to be medical personnel on the right side of the room. Most of the patients on the left side had black marks drawn on their foreheads. Many were already dead, and the rest seemed well on their way there. And in a bed alone in the far corner –

"Lee." It came out as a faint gasp as he began to pick his way through the beds and bodies that were scattered all over the room. He moved like a man in a dream, dazed with shock. This couldn't be happening. That couldn't be his son back there among all of the dead and the dying.

It was. He lay unmoving on the bed, his face deathly pale and his breathing shallow. His chest was covered in blood; a thin trickle of it ran from the corner of his mouth.

"Lee," Bill managed again in a choked, broken voice. Reaching out to brush a hand over his son's forehead, he felt the heat radiating from his skin; he was still alive. "Lee," Bill tried again, a little louder this time.

Finally, Lee let out a faint moan, his eyes fluttering open. "Dad?" His voice was weak and harsh with blood.

"Hey," Bill whispered, blinking back the tears that were already pricking at his eyes. "What happened, huh? I gave you the lighter. That was supposed to keep you safe."

Foolish to think a hunk of metal could keep him safe…

In response, Lee held up his left hand, and Bill saw that the memento in question was currently clutched tightly in his fist. He held it out to his father. "G-guess it didn't work this time. Sorry."

Bill took it, noticing the flecks of blood that now stained the scarred and pitted metal. "It still might," he said, trying to imbue the words with more hope than he felt. "You can pull through this. You'll be okay."

Lee shook his head, his own eyes now bright with unshed tears. "They told me – " He had to stop to cough, more blood flowing from the corner of his mouth. " – told me I've got a chest f-full of shrapnel. Not a whole lot they c-can do." Seeing that his dad was about to argue, Lee quickly changed the subject. "Heard Kara found us a planet."

Knowing what his son was doing, but also why he was doing it, Bill went along with it. "She sure did."

"What's it like?"

Bill hesitated for a few seconds, swallowing hard before answering. His son was asking about a planet that he'd never have the chance to live on. "It… it looks perfect. Good climates. Natural resources. We should be able to make a home here."

"S-sounds great."

This was wrong. After everything Lee had been through, after everything he'd done, he couldn't die without the reward he'd earned, without the dream he'd fought for for so long.

"Do you want to see it?" He was dying anyway; what did it matter if it happened in sickbay or not?

Lee smiled weakly when he realized what his father was suggesting. "Yeah."

"You're sure you'll be all right?"

Bill stood with Laura on the hangar deck next to a waiting Raptor. Lee was already aboard. Bill had been hoping Laura would agree to come as well, but, to his surprise, she had refused.

"I'm not about to drop dead, Bill," she answered gently. She glanced toward the young man stretched on the floor of the Raptor. "Besides, this isn't for me. It's for you and your son. I'm not going to get in the way of that."

Bill nodded reluctantly. "Okay. I'll be back after – " He didn't finish the sentence, but they both knew the ending nonetheless. "I'll be back soon."

"I know," Laura replied sadly. Squeezing his hand comfortingly, she said, "I'd like to say goodbye first, if you don't mind."

"Of course not." Bill led her over to the shuttle and helped her climb inside, then stood aside so the two of them could talk.

Lee was lying on a few blankets on the floor of the Raptor, with another folded under his head as a pillow. He had his eyes closed, resting, trying to save what little strength he had left.

Laura reached out and gently laid a hand on his shoulder. "Captain Apollo?"

Slowly opening his eyes, Lee blinked up at her blearily, struggling to focus properly. "Thought you didn't call me that anymore."

Laura smiled sadly. "I thought you weren't the Captain Apollo I knew anymore. But I was wrong. Turns out I never really knew Captain Apollo." She squeezed his arm. "I understand you better now, Lee. I know why you did what you did. Truth be told, I can't help being a bit proud of you."

"I'm still sorry," Lee whispered.

"I know," Laura answered softly. "It's all right."

Silence reigned for a long moment. Outside the Raptor, Bill walked past the open hatch. Lee watched him go, a frown tugging at his lips. Looking back up at Laura, he asked plaintively, "He's gonna be okay, right?"

The question made Laura's heart ache. From the time she had first met the Adamas, she had never quite been able to pinpoint where exactly their relationship was at any given point. One thing she had always been sure of, though, was that Lee Adama loved his father.

"I certainly hope so."

Lee saw the worry in her eyes, and he knew what it meant. "Thank you," he said suddenly, quietly, his eyes shining with tears, "for loving my dad. He really needed it."

Unable to think of an answer, Laura took hold of his hand and held it tightly. In that moment, there was a kind of understanding between them. They were both dying; not much more needed to be said.

"I know you don't believe in the gods," Laura whispered at long last, "but if it turns out that there really is something after all of this, I guess I'll see you there."

Lee tried his best to smile. "See you there."

Giving his hand one last squeeze, Laura stood and carefully climbed down out of the Raptor. Outside, she found that Bill was no longer waiting alone. Kara was with him now, looking more emotional than Laura had ever seen her. There was a deep history between Lee Adama and Kara Thrace, that much Laura knew. She had no doubt that they were soulmates, in their own way, whether they were meant to be together or not.

Seeing Laura exiting the shuttle, Bill turned to Kara. "Do you want to see him before…?"

She nodded shakily. "Yeah." Taking a deep breath, she moved past Bill and Laura and stepped up into the Raptor. She wasn't prepared to see Lee like this. He was so pale, so weak, spots of blood soaking through the bandages across his chest.

"Hey, Apollo."

He opened his eyes and looked at her, and his baby blues still captivated her just as much as they had the very first time she'd met him. Gods, she'd always loved those eyes.

"How are you doing?"

Lee shrugged weakly. "Had b-better days." His eyes searched her face for a moment, his brow furrowing in confusion. "You look different."

"So do you," Kara answered. His outline was beginning to blur around the edges, almost like a photograph that had been taken slightly out of focus. If she looked at him long enough, she could start to see a faint light around him, inside of him. "I'm dead, you know," she said abruptly.

"I know."

"That's why I look different to you. And why you look different to me. We're both fading."

Lee nodded, looking up at her trustingly.

"It's not so bad," she continued. "Dying, I mean. It doesn't hurt or anything. And I can't really tell you what's after that, but… it's not bad." She gave him a faint smile. "So I guess I'll see you soon, then."

"Yeah," Lee answered softly. "I guess so."

"It'll be okay."

"I know," Lee said again. He wasn't afraid of dying. He trusted Kara.

With one last attempt at a smile, Kara reached out to hold Lee's hand for a brief moment – then leaned down and kissed him softly. "You know I love you, right?"

Lee managed a grin and repeated one more time, "I know." Then he added, "I love you, too."

"I know." Kara got up to leave, but stopped at the hatch. "When you see your brother, tell him I'm on my way." Then she was gone.

When she climbed back down onto the hangar deck, Bill was waiting for her, and he enveloped her in a tight hug.

"I can't believe this is really happening," she whispered tightly, her words slightly muffled against his shoulder. "All the times we talked about dying, I never thought… I don't think I ever believed it would happen to him." She stepped back, wiping her face. "He's Apollo. He was supposed to be invincible." She could tell by the look on the Admiral's face that much the same thought had occurred to him. Suddenly, he realized that he was blaming himself. "This isn't your fault."

Bill shook his head. "I knew how dangerous this mission would be. I shouldn't have let him come."

"It's Lee," Laura countered softly, stepping up and resting a hand on Bill's shoulder. "He would have come anyway."

Bill was saved from coming up with an answer when, inside the Raptor, Lee began to cough wetly.

"You should go," Laura said immediately.

Bill nodded and kissed her briefly. "I'll see you both when I get back."

With one last nod, Kara took Laura's arm and slowly led her away from the Raptor. At last, Bill climbed inside and shut the hatch behind him. The first thing he saw was the fresh blood at the corner of Lee's mouth from his latest coughing fit. Bill carefully wiped it away.

"Hey, kid. You ready to go?"

"Yeah," Lee answered tiredly.

"Okay." Bill brushed a hand over his son's hair affectionately. He'd almost forgotten that he used to have such fatherly impulses. And now it was his last chance to indulge them. Seeing Lee's eyes beginning to drift shut again in exhaustion, Bill said, "You just stay with me, okay? I'm gonna get you down there."

Lee opened his eyes again. "Okay."

Forcing himself away from his son's side, Bill moved to the pilot's seat and sat down. The hangar had been cleared. Everything was ready for the shuttle to leave. With one last look back at his son, Bill prepared for takeoff.

It didn't take him long at all to find a good place to set the Raptor down. Almost as soon as the ship broke through the atmosphere, Bill saw a wide, grassy plain, dotted here and there with flocks of birds and a large herd of some kind of grazing animal. A small lake sparkled in the distance. At the edge of the plain, the ground rose up in a broad plateau that overlooked all of the surrounding area. It was the perfect place to land.

Getting Lee out of the Raptor was tricky. As labored as his breathing had now become, Bill was almost afraid to move him at all. In the end, he managed to get his son outside, half supporting, half carrying him. Finally, he helped him to settle down onto the grass, resting against the side of the ship so he could look out at the view.

"It's beautiful," Lee whispered in a strained voice, struggling to even out his raspy breathing.

Bill sat next to him and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. "We never would have made it here if not for you."

"I only did my job," Lee murmured, embarrassed.

"No," Bill countered flatly. "No, you did a hell of a lot more than that."

Lee looked up at his father in surprise at the words, and the sight of his soft blue eyes, bright as ever despite his ashen face, broke Bill's heart. How could he live with never seeing those eyes again, with knowing that they were gone from the world forever? On the dark, rainy day on which Lee had been born, those eyes, always a brighter, clearer blue than Bill's own, had brought sunny skies to the world. Now, thirty years later, they were still a perfect reflection of the cloudless sky over Lee's head, even as he slowly faded away.

Thirty years. Gods, that wasn't nearly long enough. Lee deserved so much more life than that.

Lee choked and began to cough again, more blood spilling from his lips. Bill pulled him closer, and Lee leaned against him, resting his head on his dad's shoulder.

"Getting hard t-to breathe."

"I know," Bill answered helplessly, wishing with all his heart that he could fix this, that there was anything at all he could do for his son. "Does it hurt?"

"No."

Lee was on a lot of painkillers, Bill knew. Before taking his son from sickbay, Bill had asked a medic what would happen when the drugs wore off. The look on her face had been more than enough answer: Lee would be dead by then.

"Kara said I'd s-see Zak again," Lee said faintly.

Bill struggled to swallow past the hard lump in his throat. "I'm sure he misses you."

"Thought you d-didn't believe in an afterlife."

Bill rested his head against his son's with a quiet sigh. "I've lost too many of the people I love not to." He could feel Lee weakening, every breath sounding worse than the last. "I have to believe I'll see you all again."

"You will," Lee answered, his voice barely audible. "We'll wait for you."

His eyes were closed now, but he could hear the bird calls in the distance, and feel the warm sun and light, soft breeze on his face, and that was all he needed. "Promise me you'll be okay," he murmured. "A-after Laura and I are gone. Just – just d-don't give up."

Bill squeezed his eyes shut, unable to check the tears that were now streaming freely down his face. He really hadn't deserved a son like Lee. After everything Bill had put him through, Lee was still endlessly loyal and loving toward his father. Even now when he was dying.

"I won't," Bill managed in a rough voice. "I promise." He was holding Lee so close now, in a way he hadn't done since Lee was just a boy. In fact, that was all that Lee seemed to be now: that sweet little boy with the rare, brilliant smile, Bill's firstborn, the child who had made him a father.

He was too still.

Bill gently rubbed his shoulders, again brushing a hand over his hair. "Lee?"

There was no answer.

"Lee!" he tried again, more urgently. Heart in his throat, he pressed two fingers to Lee's neck, searching for a pulse. He never found one. "Oh, gods…"

Bill Adama cradled the body of his only remaining child against his chest, burying his face in Lee's hair, and finally whispered the words he had always meant to say to his son but had never known how, the one thing Lee had always most needed to hear – and now never would.

"I love you."

A/N: I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I am a terrible person. I'm sorry.