Final Five Chapter 1: Ellen Tigh, a battlestar galactica: 2003 fanfic

A/N

The idea for this came from a writing challenge, namely to "write five things that make a character smile." However, the original challenge was pairing based, and while Battlestar Galactica has plenty of opportunities for that (sometimes a bit too many IMO...0_0), I decided to alter things. To not make it pairing based, and instead of happy romance, make it a case where characters are smiling, yet keep up a healthy level of depression in each case, as per each member of the Five. Yep, that's how my mind works. ;)

Battlestar Galactica: Final Five

The First: Ellen Tigh

Ellen Tigh smiles at the notion of Saul's retirement.

She knows that Bill wouldn't believe her when she exclaims how much she's looking forward to spending more time with her husband-all her time, if she can wrangle it. But that bothers her little, and not only because Saul's friend is currently taking a leak in the toilets of this strip bar in Caprica City. Full time marriage, whether it be in a house or homeless on a street. It's only fitting that she lets Saul go out with a bang, to be in a room full of scantily clad women before entering a life where the only naked woman he sees will be herself.

And she believes it. His honesty. His sincerity. Much like her own, their feelings coursing through them as they enjoy this night of celebration. And so she smiles at what she has. She smiles at what's to come.

It's only when Saul turns her back on her, when he chooses Bill over her, that she stops smiling.

And tries to regain it elsewhere.

Ellen smiles at the strange man that's come up to her in the Pink Moon.

Alright, so maybe he's not that strange. Over the years, over her efforts of sticking it to Saul every time she gets for abandoning her, she's got to know many types of men. Usually only on the physical level, but some of them will actually use some foreplay or engage in pillow talk. And whilst she has no intention of getting to know this "mysterious stranger" in such a manner, even if he is that type of man, she's willing to engage in vocal conversation. For once. Anything to rub it in to Saul further.

And, it seems, to rub it into this...priest? as well. No, she won't change, she doesn't want t to change and if she does change, she's only selling herself out. She is who she is and she's willing to live with that. And neither Saul nor this mystery man is going to change her.

So Ellen smiles as she verbally spars with him. She smiles as she holds her ground in this battle of tongues in a manner she's not accustomed to.

It's only when the shockwave of a nuclear detonation hits the bar that she stops smiling.

Ellen smiles at her husband when they're reunited.

She never thought she'd be so grateful to be on one of the starships that kept Saul away from her all these years. But then again, she never thought the Twelve Colonies would be subjected to a nuclear holocaust. She never thought that a mysterious benefactor would get her on the Rising Star. And she certainly never thought that she'd be reunited with Saul in such a manner, and be so...grateful to see him. It's like...like the years of them drifting apart never happened. And with civilization having been reduced to ground zero, with the human race forced to start over, maybe it's effectively the case that none of the events of the past occurred.

Yet old habits are hard to break. That's why she smiles at Bill and Lee at the dinner table celebrating her return. Why she smiles when Tom Zarek talks to her on Cloud Nine, wanting to know about someone called Valence. That's why she continues to spend much of her time in the starship's bar, nearly getting killed by some radicals as a result. She's been poking Saul in the eye for so long, it's as if it's all she knows.

Yet she still smiles. Because maybe people can change, just like the mystery man said...or Mister Cylon as he's revealed to be shortly before the fleet's arrival at the world of New Caprica. Maybe she can change as well...change the entire dynamic of her relationship with Saul. And maybe New Caprica is the place to do it.

So Ellen smiles when the two head planetside. She smiles in the presence of her husband, even as the months of cylon occupation take their toll on the colony and on herself as she's forced to give into "Brother" Cavil's wishes to keep her husband out of detention and prevent him from losing his other eye. It's in this feat, even if it requires giving data to the cylons, that she's successful.

It's a success that isn't repeated when it comes to the punishment for her crimes.

Ellen finds herself smiling at John.

It's funny, really. She didn't die with a smile on her lips, nor did she wake up with one. It's only when she sees the man (yes, he's still a man in her eyes) approach her that the smile returns to her. The man that she and her fellow scientists made in the image of her father. The man who would become the first of eight cylon models that she, Saul and the others crafted. The man who condemned Daniel, his creators and humanity to death, not to mention nearly driving her to death with his fraking on New Caprica. And yet, after all this time, she's glad to see him.

Sort of.

The smile becomes bittersweet as he accuses her of not learning anything, of not changing. If change leads to what "Number One" has become, maybe it's better not to change at all, as she once told him on Picon. In one sense, she's come home, reunited with her 'children.' But on the other hand...the hand that shows how her children have refused to grow at all, she knows that the Colony no longer is her home. And under her first child's leadership, it never will be.

So despite being a cylon, despite being among her own kind, it isn't until Ellen is returned to humanity that she feels at home. Or rather, when she's with Saul again. Or at least that seems like the case until it's revealed he's impregnated one of their own 'children.'

And while the fact that two cylons have successfully produced a child is a biological miracle, Ellen doesn't find herself smiling.

She's with Saul on Earth...and she's home.

Not the home that was the Colony. Not the home that was the Twelve Colonies. Not even her original home of Earth-the real Earth, the one that even two-thousand years after she left it, is still an irradiated wasteland. No, she's on the new Earth that the old Earth once was...what Kobol was...heck, even what the Twelve Colonies were. And yet it's something else. Something new. Something...innocent. Something that she hopes will stop the cycle of destruction from ever repeating itself.

And if it does...well, she won't be around to see it anyway.

Ellen sees much right now, looking across the savannah of the continent that the remnants of humanity and cylon have called home. But she only truly sees Saul, standing beside her. Together with her for the rest of their lives, as was once the apparent case on a sleazy bar in Caprica City all those years ago. Yet now, on this new world, she knows that this will indeed be the case.

So Ellen smiles as she and Saul enter their first embrace on this world.

It's all she needs.