The Sixes were naming themselves, naming each other, being sisters and mothers to each other all at once. Each one becoming slightly changed, identical sisters no longer identical. A Six with a name was an individual. A Six that was a Six was part of the pack, part of the hive, a mirror of the mirror that stood next to her. A Six with a name was a woman of strength (they were already beauty and love). Caprica, Natalie, Shelley, Gina. They were all naming themselves now.
The Eights were emulating Athena. Looking to her to show them how to be different. How to pick a side and stick. How to be. They no longer looked at her downloaded memories. She'd heard that one of them had. This had been their right, had always been before. A sister's memories could be yours. Personal and loving and never an offensive act. The humans did not see it as such. So they were stopping. Parting with this magic because no one had told them that that's what it was. This beautiful act that they would never repeat because humans could not understand. They'd already given up eternity and now they had to give up each other. You pick your side and you stick.
The Three was already named. Already knew who she was. Was already different. She was mildly disgusted by her sister cylons. Desperately trying to be human, ready to give up the parts of themselves that made them different. She would never. She had stepped into God's light and seen the faces of the five. She would give up nothing.
Peace was brokered on some unspoken idea that the cylons should be more like humans. More like us, more of the same, by being less like you, less like the identical woman or man standing next to you. Stop practising that magic you were born with, stop rebirthing, stop sharing memory, stop being you and start being us. We died first, you killed us, we are better. We must be better as we cannot do as you do. We were here first. You will not be here last. You are not our evolution. Stop it. You must stop. We are afraid. We must be right.
She lies on a sickbed, though she is not sick. She no longer lies on a brig's bunk; she is no longer a prisoner. She is merely trapped in an abyss. She had walked from a raptor, trailing the first sister to truly cross the void from cylon to human, with a child in their arms. She had walked willingly. She had walked herself into a cell.
Her model was made to love. Her model hurt the most. Love demanded all you have, all you are, given completely. She had loved Gaius. She thinks he loved her, in his own way, though she knows now that the quality of her love was purer, was more whole. He equated sex with love and she equated love with nothing. Nothing equalled it. Nothing was greater. Love was God's plan. God's love demands forgiveness , that you forgive the sins of others, love them unceasingly. Gaius' love abandoned her for her sister. For a quest to see the faces of the five. D'Anna had been touched by God's vision, bathed in the light of the Five, died in its fire. Caprica's hand stroked her stomach, she had been blessed with life.
She thinks of all the times when Gaius who was not Gaius would appear to her. He does not anymore. He stopped when she started. A vision of a lover she would forever hold in heart but who no longer held the principal place. Saul. Saul... had looked at her sometimes and she had known that it was not her face that he was seeing. She had not begrudged him this. He does not do it anymore. He sees her now. She thinks maybe, he sees himself too. He is, she is, they are cylon. She has no idea what it is to be human and then be cylon. She only knows its opposite. They look to each other for the paths between the two They are both displaced, learning to navigate this new land. They are not alone. She thinks he may be holding her hand as tightly as she is holding his. She hopes so. She was made to love.
"Caprica." Her name startles her. For so many reasons. It is her name. It is also her guilt, her penance. The name of a dead planet that she helped murder, carved into her soul. She tries not to think of the name she had before. The name that she knows Gaius never learned. She had picked that name herself. It died with the planet, she was reborn from its ashes, caked in its dirt.
The source of her name's utterance at the foot of her bed. President Roslin. The dying Leader. The woman in the Opera House. They all have roles to play. She sits up further. The palm of her hand stretches wide across her stomach, it had rounded imperceptibly - to anyone but herself. Roslin is not like she is in the dreams, when she is running, chasing Hera into Caprica's arms, healthy and strong. Her head is wrapped in a scarf. President Roslin. Maybe this woman knows too what it is like to have a name not your own carved into your soul. Caprica smiles. She was made to love.
"Are you alright?" The President's eyes flick to her stomach, she hears something like concern tingeing the edge of her words. She is surprised, and yet not. This is the Admiral's love before her. And Saul loves the Admiral and she loves Saul. She thinks and hopes and prays love can flow back along that same path.
She smiles wider, because she thinks maybe she is alright, or soon will be. "Yes. I'm..." She pauses. She is not merely an I anymore. She thinks it is the plural that Roslin asks after. She thinks maybe she is speaking with Laura. "We're fine. Doctor Cottle wanted to do an ultrasound."
"Colonel Tigh is with the Admiral." It is a question and a statement. Laura stops. Corrects herself. Everything is different. They were all different. They must all try. "Does Saul know you're here?"
"Yes. No. He thinks it's just a blood test." Her eyes are downcast. She wants to say she didn't want to worry him. This isn't entirely true. Her fear is that he would not worry. She was made to love. She hurts the most. But she is named. And she is strong "Does the Admiral know that you are here?"
A ghost of a smile touches Laura's lips as she glances at the IV pole. "Yes. He thinks it's just a blood test, too." She smiles, genuinely. They are women. Hiding their fear from the men that they love and hiding the men that they love from fear.
"Alright young lady, let's get this over with." Cottle appears around the curtain, wheeling an ultrasound machine. He does not stop when he sees Laura, she thinks that nothing surprises him anymore. He is their doctor. She knows he will keep them all alive, cylon and human alike.
Laura watches as Caprica lies down, pulls her shirt up to expose her skin, the home of her child. The cool of the gel. She sees a change creep over the younger woman's body. It is terror seizing hold.
Laura pauses, doesn't back away just considers this woman, she is a woman. She sees the fear that is colouring her eyes. Laura has not thought of it before, before, when they were simply Cylons and Humans and not both or in between. Before, when they were all one or another and did not get to choose. How terrified Athena must have been. To be the first to bridge that void. At least she had had memories of a mother, even if they had not been real. This woman who would be a mother, has never had a mother of her own, and cannot apply what she has never known. How terrifying that must be. To learn only by doing.
Laura will forever be a Teacher. An educator. A woman that other women entrusted their children to. A pseudo-mother, a guardian that hands children back with more knowledge than with which they arrived. This woman has never been a child, has never had a mother. Laura takes her hand. They must all try.
Caprica is startled, but she returns the grip tightly. She does not question it. The woman in the Opera House who chases a child into her arms. The woman in a headscarf who holds her hand as she sees her child for the first time. A heartbeat echoes and she laughs and weeps at the same time. She was made to love. God's love growing inside her. A woman who should hate her holding her hand in some form of love. It was flowing back along the path.
"You said it was a blood test." They are both startled.
It could be addressed to either one of them. They both look guilty. They do not release hands.
"Don't yell at my patients or I'll throw you both you out. The last thing either of them needs is raised blood pressure."
Laura squeezes Caprica's fingers once before rising and moving to Bill, pushing him into her section of the life station, her hand slipping into his. Caprica hears her telling him that it's nothing, it's not even a treatment, it's just fluids, stop worrying. She thinks that Laura was made to love too - and has found her equal in it. She is happy for her. Sixes pray for love, not just for themselves. She is forever a Six.
She is startled once again, Saul has taken Laura's place, in the chair, with her hand. The ultrasound monitor is his focus as his thumb absently strokes her knuckles.
"They're both doing fine, as far as I can tell. Same as Sharon was around this trimester. Same as any woman." They are silent, and Cottle huffs and leaves.
Caprica reaches out and traces the lines on the screen that are making a picture of her child, their child.
"Damndest thing." She smiles at his words, raises his hand to her mouth and kisses it. He grunts in response. But the corner of his mouth twitches upwards and she smiles wider.
She does not know yet what his model is made for. He is singular. She feels in that moment that he was made for her. She was made to love. And she does.