A/N: Oh my, it's been a while. I've stumbled over this odd (aren't they ever) little piece within the bowels of my hard drive and made up my mind to actually post again, for old times' sake. Besides, there's definitely not enough Lee/Tigh season 4.2 interaction out there.
As it goes, Colonel Tigh, of all people and Cylon, gets to feature amidst Lee's post-SAGN (4.11) glum reverie.
Disclaimer: None of the characters and/or plot-points, inherent to the show, belong to me.
and all ye need to know*
The glass of ambrosia, filled to the brim, was still clutched in his hand. Untouched. Tigh snorted at the suspicious look Lee was apparently sporting.
"It's not poisoned, if that's what you're worried about".
He lowered the gaze, a wee morsel embarrassed. Lee had no clear recollection as to how he got there after the memorial service. His sight was swimming in and out of focus, his head leaden heavy yet spinning for the second day in row. Maybe longer. He lost coherent track of time ever since the news of Dee caught up with him in the middle of the night. That night was not over yet, truth be told, as far as he was concerned. Might as well never arrive to the end. Ever. The prospect didn't bother him more than it, for all intents and purposes, should have.
What bothered him quite a bit through the gaudy rite, however, was the plain fact that he didn't want to be there – in the middle of a vast hangar deck; amidst dozens of Galactica officers, enlisted crew, a couple of his fellow Quorum members even, his father and President Roslin notwithstanding; at her funeral. Well, not just for obvious reasons, anyway. He caught himself envying Chief. The simple, solemnly gracious ceremony Tyrol held for his late wife woefully not too long ago, left him deeply moved, appeased somehow, for all his lack of religious commitment worth. Why couldn't he have the same? Why couldn't Dee have the same? Quiet, intimate and earnest. Just the two of them – it always worked better that way.
He was marginally aware that his father stood up to shelter the President from the increasingly curious stares and lead her off the hangar deck before the attending crowd snapped out of the mandatory mourning reverie and redirected attention at their Admiral and their Prophet for guidance and deliverance. He couldn't, in all honesty, care less for either anymore, so just concentrated on mapping the surface of the sealed airlock hatch with his palm, basking in the feel of scratchy roughness on his skin.
He remained standing close enough, oblivious of his father's hesitant urge, as the guard of honor eased her casket inside, by far the only one present not snapping at attention to the final blare of Colonial anthem. He was way too crushed to pretend the pompous ritual was in par with the loss. He could hear the worn out levers of the hatch on the opposite side screech, opening, to let her be sucked in by the enormous silent void. He could even claim the freezing nothingness, flooding the airlock right that moment, was palpable through the pores of rusty metal, as his hand pressed harder. He could envision quite vividly her coffin to instantly transform into a rigid shape of minute frosty icicles, edges glistening merrily in the dark to the flicker of distant oblivious stars. A sleeping beauty in a crystal casket. Guess, among other things, his kiss failed her too.
The next thing to register through the viscous blur was to be steered away from the airlock hatch by a firm and not unpainful grip on his upper arm right into Colonel's quarters, into the chair opposite the desk, his father probably favored whenever conferring in private with his trusted XO and best friend. It was Lee's turn to snort.
"You're a Cylon."
The single eye bored into him with a renewed surge of frustration. Colonel Tigh had hardly ever particularly bothered to spare Lee's intellectual aptitude the benefit of the doubt.
"Still doesn't change the fact I was there when you were born. When your brother was born. When you got your first bike. At your brother's funeral." – he failed to stifle a gossamer shudder at that. – "On your Gods damned wedding day. And I'm here today."
Lee was too numb and too exhausted to feign any pretence at brightness and ventured for stating the obvious yet again, fingers clasping tighter around the sleek circumference of the glass.
"I was going to airlock you."
The sound escaping his opponent's pursed lips was closer to the chortle that time.
"Wouldn't give another damn about you, young Mister, if you weren't. Go ahead, drink it already!"
He'd appreciate the regard and maybe even smile wryly in response, were he in any capability to process emotions.
"Do you want to get me drunk, Colonel?"
He could bet an exasperated gurgle preceded what Tigh was going to say next. The little boy in him, buried for good in the ashes of many an abandoned illusion, couldn't, nonetheless, help indulging a bit of annoyance at 'uncle Tigh's' expense.
"I want you to drink that frakking glass and black out before you dropped dead on your tracks in the middle of a frakking hallway. And when you've slept it off I want you to go out of this room and figure out the frakking future."
"What if there is none?"
"Then you damn sure owe her to make one up!"
Tigh downed his own drink, the single eye trained on him all but sparkling with something that wasn't disdain, but couldn't very well transpire for reassurance either.
Hadn't Lee made it up already? Dee saw right through the lies he conjured for the sake of hope and carried out her desperation anyway. Then again, fairytales were not lies per se. They were reality in the making, right? The one not viable enough to provide the premise, but indispensible enough to offer refuge. Guess, he owed them both to try over.
*Cf.: "…Beauty is truth, truth beauty, — that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."
(John Keats. Ode on a Grecian Urn.)