Broken Silence
Author: SabaceanBabe
Rating: PG
Word count: 1,617
Characters: Helo and Tyrol
Spoilers: through Downloaded
Summary: After launch, there were a couple of times that he wanted to say something, but it seemed somehow wrong to break the silence.
Author's note: Thank you to lyssie and greycoupon for the beta.
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"Hold that thought, Cally, I'll be right back." Tyrol spotted a familiar figure – one he hadn't seen in a couple of days – across the hangar and interrupted Cally's report. He touched her arm in silent apology as he left her there. "Hey, L.T.!" He jogged to catch up with the tall lieutenant, who was dressed in full flight gear. Helo's not scheduled for a rotation…
Helo slowed, stopped, but didn't turn around. His shoulders were stiff and Tyrol had the feeling that he'd hoped to go unnoticed. Tyrol slowed and a frown stole over his face as he came to a stop in front of this man who had, despite everything, become his friend. "Helo? You all right?"
The man's eyes were puffy and painfully red. His jaw worked, but he said nothing and he didn't meet the Chief's eyes. A canister of some sort was held carefully, almost protectively, in gloved hands.
"Oh, Gods. Sharon…?" Tyrol wasn't sure he wanted to hear the answer, now that he saw the bleak look on Helo's face, the way he seemed to hold himself together by force of will alone.
"She's alive." A monotone pronouncement, barely above a whisper.
"Alive. Helo, man, talk to me." No response. It was as though Helo were only going through the motions, as though he weren't really here. Trying to think of something to break through, to reach the man inside the shell, Tyrol gestured toward the canister. "What d'you have there?"
Helo's grip on the metal box tightened reflexively as devastated eyes rose to meet Tyrol's. "My little girl." The words were so softly spoken that Tyrol was sure he hadn't heard them right.
"What?"
"Doc said her lungs weren't developed. She couldn't breathe on her own." Still with the rasping whisper. A chill ran down the Chief's spine. "This is Hera." Helo's voice broke on the name and a flash of anguish escaped before he clamped it down hard. "I'm taking her ashes out into space."
Tyrol felt like he'd been punched in the gut. He looked at the box and then back up at Helo, swallowed hard. "Raptor two oh one is ready. Wait for me there." Dragon would just have to wait for another ship to be prepped.
"Wait?"
"You're not taking her out there alone." It would only take him a couple of minutes to find a flight suit that would fit. He'd give orders to his knuckledraggers to stall Helo until he got back. There was no way the L.T. should be allowed to go out there alone, not the way he looked and sounded right now.
"Why?" Helo's voice was closer to normal, but not quite there yet.
"Because you're my friend and I've got your back." He squeezed Helo's shoulder and headed for the locker rooms off the hangar.
xxx
It took him longer than he'd expected to find a flight suit and helmet and by the time he returned, suited up for space, there was no sign of Helo. Hoping his deck crew had been able to do as he'd asked, the Chief headed grimly for Raptor 201, borrowed helmet under his arm.
When he got there, the hatch was open and the ramp deployed. Seelix stood on the Raptor's frame, just outside the hatch and with a clear view of the cockpit from where she stood. She appeared to be doing make-work, stalling as ordered.
"Is he in there?"
"Yeah, Chief." She glanced back into the cockpit, then jumped nimbly to the deck. "What's going on?"
He debated for half a second whether to tell her or not, but finally decided that it wasn't his place. The fact that Helo was the father of a pregnant Cylon's baby wasn't exactly a secret, but this was different. Tyrol knew the knowledge would get out eventually, but it wasn't going to be from him. He could at least give that much to Helo and Sharon.
"Thanks for delaying him, Seelix, I'll take it from here." He smiled to take any sting out of the dismissal.
Clearly disappointed, she nodded. "Yes, sir." She spun on her heel and was gone and Tyrol was left to deal with the man in the Raptor. He took a deep breath, exhaled, and then walked up the ramp. This won't be easy, he thought as he hit the hatch controls.
"You can power up the engines, L.T. I'm on board," he called to Helo. There was no immediate response, but after a moment he felt the hum of the bird's engines through the soles of his boots as Helo brought them online. Once he was sure the hatch was sealed, Tyrol headed forward and took his place in the co-pilot's chair.
xxx
During the flight to the edge of the fleet, Helo didn't say a word beyond those necessary for launch, and those weren't addressed to the Chief. Other than instructions received from and the pilot's terse responses to Flight Control, the only sound was that of Tyrol's own breathing, which echoed harshly within the contained space of his helmet. After launch, there were a couple of times that he wanted to say something, but it seemed somehow wrong to break the silence. There were no words that could comfort the man beside him, anyway.
It had been a long time since Tyrol had referred to Helo's and Sharon's daughter as "that freak in her belly," a long time since his attitude toward all three of them had changed. That child – Hera – had died, taking a part of Helo and, Tyrol suspected, of Sharon with her into the abyss. No downloading into a new body for a child that was half-human, half-machine. No second chance. She was just… gone.
Tyrol was startled when Helo stood and walked slowly to the hatch. He moved stiffly, as though he were a hundred years old and used up by life. The Chief stood and followed.
The hatch drifted open and Helo's head fell forward, the bottom of his helmet almost resting on his chest, and Tyrol thought that he prayed, although he still didn't speak. And again, he followed Helo's lead. Closing his eyes, Galen Tyrol prayed for the soul of the half-human child whose ashes couldn't possibly fill more than a tenth of that canister, still resting safely on a control console behind the grieving father.
Lords of Kobol, hear my prayer. Please take the soul of this innocent child into your keeping. Beside him, Helo lifted his head, eyes now open and staring off into the vastness of empty space. And please take her parents into your keeping, too. They really need your help. Helo reached back and his hand unerringly found the canister and its contents, all that remained of little Hera Valerii Agathon, born too soon to a world that wasn't ready for her.
It seemed odd to the Chief that all of the color seemed to have leached out of everything except the red and blue tell-tales of the Raptor's instrument panels – everything had looked perfectly normal to him when the hatch was closed against the vacuum. Helo pulled the lid from the canister and, without ceremony, tilted it until the ashes drifted out in a sparkling swirl. From the corner of his eye, in the distance, Tyrol glimpsed a couple of the ships of the fleet just beyond the dissipating wisps of ash. He hadn't expected that bit of sparkle and it didn't take long for the small cloud to disperse into nothing.
xxx
"You know what I don't understand?" Helo's question, the first words he had uttered in over an hour that weren't strictly necessary, stopped Tyrol before he could open the hatch. He looked over his shoulder at the man still slumped in the pilot's seat, his helmet on his lap.
"What's that, L.T.?"
"Why'd Cottle have her cremated so soon?" There was a long pause, but then green eyes drained of vitality lifted to meet the Chief's. "She was unique in the universe. I expected them to want to… study her, you know? Pick her apart to see what made her different from us, what made her blood cure cancer."
Tyrol stared at Helo. "What? Cure cancer?" What the frak was he talking about?
Helo blinked, but then his face cleared. "You didn't know."
"What the frak are you talking about?"
"Roslin's cancer. Dr. Baltar cured her using Hera's blood."
"Gods." The Chief made his way back into the cockpit and dropped again into the co-pilot's seat. "Cured? That's huge." He looked at Helo. "You're right, it doesn't make sense that they'd cremate her like that, but… I dunno, maybe Cottle just thought you two had been through enough."
"Maybe." Helo sucked at his cheek. "Sharon thinks Roslin and the Old Man had Hera murdered."
"No way. There is no frakkin' way Adama would do something like that."
"I used to think so…"
Tyrol grabbed Helo's arm and gave it a little shake, forced him to look him in the eye. "The Old Man did not have your daughter killed. I don't know why they did what they did with her body, but I do know that."
"Yeah… Okay…" He didn't sound convinced and there was a shadow in his eyes that Tyrol didn't understand, but then, his voice stronger, more confident, Helo said, "No. No, you're right. No one had our daughter murdered." He frowned. "But there's still something going on. Something."
They sat there in silence for a couple of minutes more, but then Tyrol stood. "If you need anything, L.T…."
"Thank you, Chief. For everything."
But Helo never looked up, didn't see Tyrol's heart-felt salute before the Chief turned to leave.