Title: Parting Gifts

Rating: M

Disclaimer: Ronald Moore owns as he should because he is awesome. I make no profit, yadda, yadda.

A/N: This is my first BSG fic. Please be kind and review. Keep in mind it has only been edited by me. If anyone would be willing to beta other BSG fics please let me know.

Parting Gifts

His fingers are warm on her wrists as he pins them over her head and his smile is simultaneously predatory and full of awe. Boomer knows she could stop this - make up something about running late, or not even bother and just bash his head against the wall to let him join his wife. But he thinks she is his wife and the concept is so foreign to her she almost wants to laugh. Sure, maybe they kissed once when they were drunk after a game of triad and she laughed at how he tasted like the orange sucker he'd been working on the whole game. But she was never in love with him.

When he leans forward searching for her mouth, she twists her wrists free of his grasp and pushes him away. She contemplates him and his parted mouth and wanting eyes. She thinks about Athena locked tight right in the same room and the way he's looking at her. Like the way Galen would look at her after they made love, talking about their dream house, kids they would have, and how all of it was a lie, ripped out from beneath her without warning. She thinks about Athena slithering her way into the place she had called home all because of a lie, an experiment, and the poor gullible sap who fell for it, who's looking at her now like she's all he ever needed.

So, she yanks her tanks up over her head and he follows suit. Boomer hopes Athena is conscious now so she can see him stalk toward her and lift her flush against him. That she can hear the hurried rustle of clothes being stripped from skin and know straight down to her bones what it's like to have even the simplest things taken away from her.

Cavil says sex is a simple biological need, imposed on cylons by their creators, and that love is a construct they don't really feel. One has nothing to do with the other. Maybe one never really existed anyway, so Boomer focuses on the mechanics of it all - making the shift of her hips at the right time, but then letting him lead, wondering if it's possible for him to even tell the difference.

When he flips her onto her back, feathers his fingers along her jaw, and kisses her nose in quick succession she has to blink at the tenderness. She fists his hair, pulling him down so he can't see her eyes and she urges him on with her other hand at the base of his spine. She closes her eyes, makes the appropriate moans and cries to match his, but goes back to her house just like the first few times Cavil urged her onto her knees. But then she feels his lips at her ear, hears a whispered sentiment she can almost believe is really for her, and then she comes back to the locker room. It still smells of rowdy, sweaty viper jocks who haven't had proper showers in months, and Athena's blood and the sex and Helo. He kisses her again and she realizes he still tastes like orange suckers, but also like her, and the other her.

Afterwards, he rolls to his back and pulls her with him into a hug. She worms out of it quickly, then wipes at her eyes as she pulls herself to her feet. She gushes out a breath, heart slowing, but her mind whirling with images of Helo, Cavil, Galen, and the life she should have had with him. She shakes her head before reaching for her clothes and then can hear him slowly starting to follow her lead as she steps into her suit. But then she feels his arm loop around her from behind.

"Why the rush?"

"Uh, I still have flight prep to do and I want to say bye to Hera before I leave."

He kisses the back of her head and steers her around. His eyes narrow, but his lips are still curled in a thin smile and she can feel her heart beat a little faster, wondering if maybe he's finally figured out that something isn't quite right. But then he nods, so humanly controlled by what he thinks he feels. Boomer knows better - knows none of it is real. Not really.

"Be careful out there," he says.

"I always am."

"I love you."

She swallows and then says, "Love you too."

Boomer turns and gets out of there before he can say anything else and makes her way down the rounded corridor, trying to shake the taste and weight of him. She wonders if he's still in there, if maybe he heard a noise from Athena, found her, and is now barking orders to find the imposter. She wonders what he'd do to her once they caught her - if those tender, feather light fingers would just as easily crush the bones of her neck. She picks up her pace and finds her way to the daycare.