FEAR
Doctor Gaius Baltar knows he's still the most hated man in the fleet, not guilty verdict or not. He sits in the quarters of his new home, rubbing his hands together.
"Why'd they let me live?" he mutters. He remembers Lee's holier-than-thou attitude towards him, and yet, it had been the Admiral's son who delivered his most eloquent defense. "I owe you that one, mate."
Baltar closes his eyes and thinks of Caprica. She's still in captivity, from what he understands, but no longer quite the enemy. "She's the one who got me to betray the human race. She's the one who should have gone on trial…" But she, at least, is in shackles while he's free, so that must mean something.
Baltar has never been a religious man, but he has increasingly turned his silent pleas to the Gods. Not getting a response, he wonders sometimes if the Cylons are right after all and that the Colonials' beliefs are falsehoods. Now that's funny-he, considered the greatest heretic in history, musing about Gods he'd never really followed.
Gaius looks back on his life and sees where his accomplishments got him. A brilliant career destroyed by a single mistake that anybody could have made. Forced into an unwinnable situation on New Caprica, where that damn Doral literally put a gun to his head-and he was the villain? Hardly; there were far worse things in the Universe than he, yet he remained the scapegoat for what had befallen the human race.
Baltar starts to sweat. He wishes Caprica were here now, but instead it's only the sultry hologram that appears.
"Still frightened, Gaius?" she says in a mockingly soothing tone. "Don't worry-I'll always be here for you." She doesn't even bother to hide the sarcastic contempt in her voice anymore.
"You're not real," Gaius mutters.
Number Six laughs. "Am I any less real than your own guilt, Gaius? That's why you spend all your time sitting alone, afraid of even meeting with your followers, isn't it?" But then she relents. "All right, Gaius, suppose I am just a figment of your imagination. I told you that we Cylons can project. Maybe I'm a projection of your longing for real companionship. Or maybe I'm just your conscience talking to you. That doesn't mean you shouldn't listen."
"Listen to what?" Gaius's voice becomes frantic. "Listen to all the things I know everybody says about me? Listen to their contempt, their hatred, their…their…"
"Their fear?" The hologram sits next to him, no longer contemptuous, only neutral. "Their fear of you…of what you could become?"
"What I could become?" Gaius shakes his head. "I'm nothing. I'm a wretch; I can't even support myself. There's nothing for me here."
"Then why are you still here?" The hologram stands up and looks at him. "Fear can be a great motivator in humans…it can help them to survive and overcome great danger. Think about it." Then she's gone.
Gaius moans as he looks at the space where she stood. "Fear is a motivator," he says. He sits on the edge of his bed, saying the words over and over again: "Fear is a motivator. Fear is a motivator. Fear is a motivator…"
The words echo around him like the throbbing of the ship's engines, until pretty soon he starts to believe them.
He continues thinking about the words long into the ship's artificial night.
THE END