Title: Sanctified
Author: Trialia
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Rating: K+
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Laura Roslin/Bill Adama
Word Count: 593
Beta: Naomi (missfoxie)
Spoilers: AU from Crossroads II
Summary: Even the gods aren't infallible. A different perspective.
A/N: Wrote the initial outline of this story some time ago – you can see it scanned in at /images/fic-bsg-deified1.jpg with the quote that was my initial inspiration written at the top - and finally decided to take the opportunity of borrowing a friend's laptop to type it up and complete it, after a fashion.
xxx
He is the only one who can still meet my eyes without fear, now that he truly knows me and knows who I really am. It took a while for him to get over the shock, especially given his powerfully atheist leanings; but here, alone together in his quarters several days after proving my identity, I can see that he's assimilated the development.
"What's it like?" he asks, quietly. I smile.
"Compared to what?"
He nods, understanding. "Good point."
"I didn't know," I tell him. "I made sure of that. We're not omniscient; it's just something of a projection. I wanted to know what it would be like to be human, not knowing anything else."
"Was the cancer your idea?" He sounds pained. Of course, I think. Why would he be otherwise?
"No," I tell him, and it's true. "I just wanted to go through life like a mortal. I'm in a mortal body right now. Things happen."
"Yeah," he agrees with a weary chuckle, "That's life, all right."
It hurt to be human. To let genocide happen because I'd had no foresight. Laura Roslin had been born eight years before the end of the first Cylon war, a healthy human child, but only human.
I'm not.
He reaches out to touch me, his fingers tangling gently in red hair, and I lean into the contact without thought. I've kept my corporeal appearance to help him adjust to me. He loves Laura; I can feel that in his gaze, in the caress of his roughened hand and the gentleness of his mind as I touch it. He's not without his flaws, but none of us are. Not even me. I'll admit it, but to him and no one else.
With this knowledge, I've changed, but only in the way I think about our situation and about who I am. I'm still the being I was before, but now I know the truth – and I still care for him, even knowing he'll die, and I must let go of him in time. Before I knew, I'd resigned myself to dying before my time and leaving him behind, victim of the creeping cancer that ravaged my human body. I'd tried not to love him, knowing how much it would hurt when I died. Now, I know it is he who will die first – the only one of us two who will truly die at all.
I'd resisted the urge to look into the future after making the decision to become a mortal for a while. Perhaps if I hadn't, I could have done something to avert the second war and its ultimate result – I knew the first would end, and I knew when. I had no idea that humanity's children would return, nor of what they would do. I didn't do enough when I could have, and that was my mistake.
Even the gods aren't infallible.
Clearly not, I think, giving in to the feeling of love in my human heart, letting myself open up to it as I sit with him. Somewhere in my consciousness I am still Laura – I think a part of me will always be, after this. She's had one thing my immortal self never could – the wisdom that comes from loving another single being more than I, who love everyone, could have ever imagined.
Though I know I can't, I want to keep it forever. At least I'll have it for a little while.
He tilts up my face to kiss me, and as my eyes close, I see perfection.
-fin