Title: Unremitting
Author: upsidedownbutterfly
Summary: Sam thought it'd be over by now. Missing scene from "The Oath."
Rating: PG
Spoilers: "The Oath"
Disclaimer: They're not mine, people.
Sam wasn't certain how long he'd been sitting like this, half-sprawled on the floor of the Galactica's brig with his back against the bars and his eyes fixed on blankly on the far wall. It had been maybe twenty, thirty minutes since the mutineers had dragged the Agathons into the cell he had been sharing with the Six. Sharon was still tending to her husband's injured head, talking softly and nonsensically to him as she did so. Six meanwhile had scooped up Hera and was now walking in slow circles humming a nonspecific lullaby to the child.
Closing his eyes, Sam let his head fall back against the bars, the sounds of his cellmates merging with the muted shouting emanating from the other side of the bulkhead into an amorphous background noise that he could almost convince himself belonged anywhere but the situation he was currently in.
Maybe the noise was really the excited buzzing of the crowd before a pyramid match, and he was back on Caprica with his old team getting ready for the championship game against Picon. But, no, thinking of pyramid just made him think of his last conversation with Diana, a deliberate distraction that had allowed him to be ambushed, beaten, and dragged off to the cell he was now sitting in.
He sighed. Well, that hadn't worked.
Distantly, Sam heard a rustle of clothing as someone moved towards him, and a moment later he felt a small hand land on his forearm. Opening his eyes, he found Sharon crouched next to him, looking at him with a worried expression on her face. "Hey," she said.
"Hey," Sam replied. He shifted slightly, pulling himself up a bit straighter. "How's Helo?" he asked, nodding towards where the other man lay on the floor.
Sharon glanced back over her shoulder. "Still out, but I think he'll be alright," she said.
Sam nodded.
There was a short pause, before Sharon spoke again. "What about you?" she asked. "You got pretty banged up yourself."
He shrugged half-heartedly. "I'll be okay," he said.
It wasn't exactly a lie. The cuts and bruises that covered his body – along with what he strongly suspected was at least one broken rib – would heal given time. But okay? Sam hadn't been okay in months now. Hell, he wasn't even sure he could remember what okay felt like anymore. But he was just too godsdamn tired to give a frak.
As if she knew what he was thinking, Sharon smiled a tiny little smile that didn't quite reach her eyes and squeezed his arm reassuringly. Sam expected her to get back up then and return to Helo's side, but she didn't. Instead, she waited, crouched there patiently beside him, as if she knew he had something more he needed to say.
"I just," began Sam when the expectant silence became too much to bear. He shook his head and started again. "I guess I just thought this," he gestured vaguely at the cell around them, "would be over by now."
What was left of the smile on Sharon's face faded, and her eyes acquired a distant look. Sam could almost see her mentally tallying up the number of time she'd been in and out of this cell. She shook her head sadly. "It's never over. You can eat with them, sleep with them, fly with them, laugh with them, but you're not one of them. And they will never ever forget that."
Sam thought back to the looks of suspicion and disgust that had colored his crewmates gazes ever since Earth. To the vicious blows he'd receive from the two men he hadn't seen, but was willing to bet he probably knew at least in passing. To Diana's betrayal; his friend or at least so he'd thought, so willing and able to sell him out.
"Yeah," said he bitterly. "Yeah, I think I'm starting to get that."