Disclaimer: They don't belong to me.
A/N: This is an old story. I'm posting it to archive a lot of my stuff that never saw the light of day. I clearly did not know what a retrofit was. The capital "The" before Admiral is intentional. :/
The Expiration of A Human Heart: Descending into Love
When Gaius Baltar leaves her chambers, Gina pulls her knees to her chest and weeps as an onslaught of memories grips her fiercely. He was a mistake. She'd known the moment she had told him to stay, known it despite the buttons she undid to entice him to her bed. She knows that they had been seeking surrogates in each for the two people they were trying so desperately to remember and forget. Even though Gaius hadn't seemed to realize it, she knows that they cannot be each other's refuge.
She weeps because when Gaius made love to her so tenderly, he had reminded her of a time when she thought she had had this, someone who loved her like this. She weeps because the human she had loved had not loved her in the same way Gaius loved his Six. She weeps because when Gaius returned to the Galactica, he had taken with him her anger and hatred, leaving her a damaged being caught in the cracks between human and cylon
This is why she sits in front of the nuke with the trigger in her hands and waits for the violent shiver to pass. In the end, not even Mr. Vice President could save her.
The first time Gina solicited a kiss from the Rear Admiral, they were in her quarters with maps of the Battestar Pegasus laid out before them on the lit table surface with Gina's plans for the Retro Fit penciled in blue and modifications penciled in red. Because of the persistent migraines that had been plaguing her lately, The Admiral kept her quarters faintly lit and flawlessly clean and organized. A year later, when she was lying on the metal floor of the harshly lit brig, her back weeping red and the shackles cutting into her wrists, Gina blamed that ambient lighting for her capricious mood. She would come to curse how well she mimicked humanity to be capable of recognizing the meaning behind the glance The Admiral gave their nearly touching hands when Gina fearlessly placed her palm on the table beside hers.
She leaned over and invaded The Admiral's space, pointing to a paper she held. "So the wires will run from junction box to junction box along the even numbed decks and then, the Pegasus won't have to worry about the inconsistencies between the newly integrated network and the old manual system that was in place before."
The Admiral gave a nod and said, "Where do you want to put these junction boxes on this deck?"
Gina placed a hand on the Admiral's shoulder and used it as steady herself as she leaned over, pointing at six different places on the deck, pretending she didn't see how The Admiral regarded her hand. For the last location, she reached across her completely and misjudged the distance, her fingers brushing over The Admiral's thumb accidentally. Gina dared to turn her head to look at her to apologize and all she needed to do was cover the three inches between them and she could kiss her, but she didn't want to be the one to initiate this. No, the Admiral was a woman who enjoyed the power of control much too greatly for that. All Gina could do was offer The Admiral the perfect moment to seize.
True to her nature, The Admiral stared back unflinching and said, "Ms. Inviere, I can't help but believe that there are ulterior motivations to your actions tonight."
Gina gave a shy smile. "What if I said there were, Admiral?"
Then the Admiral kissed her, a greedy, starved kiss that invoked a wave of sympathy inside Gina that she could feel reverse upon itself and rush toward the tip of the Admiral's resolute tongue. When they parted, she had the most fragile smile Gina would ever see cross her face, as if she'd just been replenished by the little bit of life force she'd stolen with that kiss. In that moment, Gina figured her out. Rear Admiral Helena Cain was a woman who was slowly suffocating herself with strength and protocol.
The Admiral said, "I'm not sure I understand completely how this fits in with the Retro Fit, Ms. Inviere."
Gina found herself unable to pull her gaze away. "Then how about I come a little closer and tell you all about it?"
It became a game after that. Gina was impressed that even with their illicit affair running full swing behind closed doors, the Admiral was as worthy of command as she ever was before. The only difference she saw was how, though still sharp, her temper was just that much better controlled. Whenever Gina happened to be in the CIC or they just happened to pass each other in the corridors, Gina found herself exhilarated and almost winded when she managed to coax a small smile from the otherwise stoic Admiral. How often could she cause such a look to cross The Admiral's face, she had wondered. How much could she hint to everyone around them without them knowing?
The Admiral said once over dinner, "The crew is going to catch on eventually that there's something going on between us."
Over her porcelain plate, Gina offered a smile. "I suppose the next time you request something from me, I could always just say, 'Frak you,.' What would you say if I actually said that to you?"
The Admiral sipped her wine and then set the glass back down. "I would say you're not my type."
Gina laughed. "A lie is not becoming of you."
The Admiral smiled. "I agree."
Gina had heard rumors of cylons experiencing what humans called love while away on missions, but she had always discredited them with corruption by human logic, a malfunction of their cognitive parameters, but now she wondered if the intensity inside her chest she felt whenever the Admiral fixed her gaze on her was really the result of a malfunction.
She started counting down the days until the attack. There were thirty-three days left. Only thirty-three. It suddenly felt so soon.
Gina first saw the switchblade the night before the attack. She'd awoken to see The Admiral sitting at the foot of her bed with her back to her. Gina admired the tight shoulder muscles and shapely arms, saw the tattoos that ran along the small of her back. She traced the bull and pressed her fingers into the curved tips of the horns.
"Do these have any meaning? This bull, for example?" she asked and when The Admiral glanced over her shoulder at her, she caught the glint of the switchblade in the dim light.
"Every Tauron has a version of that tattoo," The Admiral said as she passed the switchblade from one hand to the other. "The younger ones have more obnoxious designs, but we all have a bull that marks us to home."
Gina switched over to a black line that stretched symmetrically just over the tail of her spine. There was a red dot floating on the right side and Gina's finger circled it. "And this one?"
"Every Tauron who has looked a cylon straight in the face and lived to tell about it has one of those."
Gina could see the resemblance now to the visor of the old Centurion model. She stared so hard at the ink that she could almost swear it came to life and processed her, a light running from left to right and back again. It sent fingers of fire tiptoeing down her spine and she straightened up and slid her arms around The Admiral from behind. Over her shoulder she spotted the scars on her right thigh, three slits crudely cut but neatly symmetrical. By now, Gina had seen all of the scars on her body, but these three had always puzzled her, especially since they were offset by a black box tattooed around them. She brushed her fingers across them.
"What about these? Does every Tauron have these too?"
The Admiral grabbed Gina's wrist sharply and yanked her hand away, spinning on the bed to set upon her a gaze so fierce it startled Gina. Her free hand gripped the switchblade defensively as if she were prepared to strike. Gina lifted her eyebrows in pain as The Admiral realized her over reaction and watched as she lowered the switchblade
"I'm sorry," she said. "Those-. Those are just reminders."
"Of what?" Gina furrowed her eyebrow when the Admiral faltered, such a mark of humanity that is not befitting her Admiral.
The Admiral drew in a breath. "That though I may be damaged, I am still human after all."
Gina felt her heart break and she leaned over and took hold of the Admiral's hand that gripped the switchblade. She kissed the tender wrist beneath the wooden hilt and then drew the Admiral's hand to her own thigh. Gina could feel the blade of the knife on her skin tremble slightly and she covered the Admiral's quivering hand in her own.
"How about me, Admiral?" Gina whispered as she leaned over and kissed just below her earlobe. Gina squeezed The Admiral's grip on the blade and the blade left a thin line of red as she drew it across her skin. "In order to love someone damaged, just how damaged do I have to be?"
The surprise on The Admiral's face was so intoxicating that Gina didn't even feel the pain at first, but when she finally winced, the Admiral scooped her up in a crushing hug and she threw the bloodied switchblade away from them. How long had it been since The Admiral had allowed anyone to see these scars and tattoos, she wondered. How long had she lost sight of her own human core? Gina would never be able to express to The Admiral the sheer poetry she saw in a malfunctioning cylon wanting to make love to a human who thought herself damaged.
The Admiral's lovemaking was usually dominant but unhurried, always steadily pushing toward a solid and inevitable orgasm. She was as serious about sex as she was about her job and she was easily scandalized whenever Gina said anything inconsequential in the midst of it. Sometimes, Gina liked to interject mindless chatter because she always felt a thrill of excitement whenever she was sharply admonished, or flipped over to be shushed.
This time, though, felt fragile, like Gina was holding all the broken pieces in her quaking hands and The Admiral was seeking confirmation that these artifacts were still valid, still true.
Gina said, "You hate the thought of no longer being human that much?"
"Don't talk." The words were authoritative, but her voice was just above a whisper and Gina rolled on top of her. When she saw the inarguable love in her pained expression, she breathed more life into her dying Admiral in one last attempt to save her expiring soul.
The attack happened just as planned. The six on Caprica had succeeded in building the same wireless back door Gina had been missioned with and the entire world's defenses were rendered useless. Gina could feel each order as it was sent out. She knew when the nukes were launched. She knew their trajectory down to the second right before the first two smashed into the Scorpion space dock where the Pegasus was scheduled for its three month overhaul. The entire ship rocked violently with the force of the double explosions of the neighboring battlestars.
The corridors were filled with chaos and loose electrical wires as people ran to destinations she could only guess. Their screams were masked by the barrage of explosions echoing through the entire hull and when the Pegasus forcefully undocked, the entire ship rocked violently, knocking unfortunate souls into electrical wires for their last excruciating moments of life. Gina could feel the two nukes set on the Pegasus, knew that in about five seconds, every heart aboard this ship would be feeling its last moments as well. Then her body did that thing that happens whenever a ship makes a jump. For a split second it seemed to phase out of reality and then back in with her stomach just milliseconds behind.
All was quiet now except the occasional static of the severed wires crackling in the open air. Everybody paused and looked nervously around, taking longer to form the same conclusion she had done just moments prior. The Admiral had jumped away to safety at the last moment. Because of her, they were all alive.
On the night of the attack, Gina heard a knock that riled her from her bed. She opened her door and saw The Admiral's figure leaning forward on her doorframe with such exhaustion on her face that Gina completely forgot that this was the first time she had been sought out instead of summoned. There were conflicting emotions within Gina at the sight of her Admiral standing so weary and so worn before her. She took too long to speak, so the Admiral spoke for her.
"It would be very unbecoming of this ship's commanding officer to be seen begging to enter the quarters of a civilian resident aboard her vessel, Gina," she said as she casually glanced left and right down the hallway. "There's no other way to construe this than for what it is."
Gina stifled her scoff. Always so prude.
"Of course. I'm sorry. Come in." She stepped aside to let her in and behind the safety of locked doors, she received her Admiral warmly in her arms and accepted all the weight the Admiral unfolded upon her, brown waves of her hair tickling her nose and smelling of strong soap. "What's today's damage?"
"Our home worlds have been destroyed, I've lost over a fourth of my crew, about thirty of my fighters are down, the remaining fighters out number the pilots, and my new Lieutenant has apologized to me for freezing during a very critical moment." The Admiral pulled her down to sit on the bed with her and then finally released her, resting her elbows on her knees and rubbing the palms of her hands together.
"Lieutenant Shaw?" Gina asked.
"She's proving herself little by little. Finally had to send her to her quarters to sleep. I still don't think she's actually seen it with her own eyes yet."
The Admiral let herself fall backward onto Gina's bed and covered her eyes with an elbow and Gina felt a smug satisfaction. Probably only a handful of people had the pleasure of saying they'd seen the woman collapse from the constant high alert of standard protocol.
"Do you know where you were on Armistice Day when the truce was called, Gina?" The Admiral's voice sounded like it had been dragged over gravel. "Of course you don't. You're much too young for that, aren't you?"
"Just a little bit, yeah."
"I was inside a safe house and this was on the ground." The Admiral removed her hand from her eyes and pulled the switchblade from her pocket. Lifting it in the air so she could see it. "I thought maybe I could defend myself with it. Thought maybe it was more honorable to keep fighting until the end."
"Do you still believe that?"
"To an extent." It was almost unnerving the way The Admiral stared at the switchblade with eyes so alive. It would have been a relief when she pocketed it again if she hadn't set that intense gaze upon her when she did. Gina couldn't help but feel exposed. "But now I think when you're looking certain death straight in the eye, you're also facing the responsibility of all your choices, good and bad, that got you to this point. So you should pay your respect to those choices head on, unflinching, because there's no such thing as redemption. That's what I learned on Armistice Day."
"You were just a child then. Should you really be expected to do something so distinguished?" Gina asked and then lay beside her, propping her head up on a hand.
"I was old enough to know what I was responsible for when the cylons came to Tauron. I was old enough to know that when they left, I'd lost everyone because of choices I'd made. But you young ones born after Armistice Day, you can't really understand that, can you?"
"No, I can't really understand that. I'm sorry."
"Don't apologize, Gina. It's not a bad thing you can't. It would only mean that all you have left is anger."
The way The Admiral took her hand in her own and lifted it to place a kiss on the inside of her palm threatened a shiver down her spine and Gina felt something odd inside her like gears that hadn't existed before finally clicking together. She suddenly felt like the skin and muscles that lay between their hearts were barriers that kept them apart and she felt a yearning inside her to be closer than was humanely possible.
The mess hall of the Pegasus accommodated about five hundred people at a time which meant that for the three hours surrounding every meal time, it was packed and full of chatter that blended together. Since the attack, it was the first time Gina had felt the collective intensity of the crew begin to dissipate as everyone started to settle into this new reality. At a table, Lieutenant Kendra Shaw and a couple marines caught Gina's attention with a few arms waving in the air and she made her way over with an amused smile on her face before setting her tray down.
"I've turned in the photos of the Relay Station to the Admiral," Kendra said. "She said she'll go over the docs and make her decision."
"That's good to hear, Lt," Gina said with a smile. "Hopefully, it'll give us the advantage she's been looking for."
"I have to say, Gina," the marine Gina knew as Finch, shook his head. "With all the shit we've landed ourselves into, you're the only one who still looks fabulous and content. You wanna share your secret with us?"
"Yeah, Gina," Kendra said, sitting back in her seat. "Do enlighten us."
Gina tried to contain her smile. "Well, you know. I try to look on the positive side of things."
"Like what?" The marine asked. The name sewn on his uniform read Lewis. "I bet you've got some young private shacked up to your bed in your quarters. I mean, you know what they say about desperate times and sex."
"No, not really. What do they say?" Gina asked him, wondering if this was a human idiom only recently conceived.
Finch laughed and shook his head. "Come on, Gina. It's sex. Everything is better with sex."
"Don't pay attention to them," Kendra told her. "They're just upset that they're potential sexual parters have been reduced to the members of this crew and none of us are going to see any extracurricular fraternization in a long time if I know the Admiral well enough."
Lewis snorted. "Now there's a woman who needs to get laid."
Now, Gina can't help but smirk. "You think so?"
"You volunteering for the job, Sgt?" Kendra asked.
"Hell, no," Lewis said. "The Admiral is a regular ball shrinker if you know what I mean."
"Speaking of the Admiral," Finch said and sacked Lewis in the shoulder hard with a fist. He cocked his head toward the doors and all of them turned to see Rear Admiral Helena Cain making her way to them, saying a few things to different diners as she passed by. When she set sights on their table, Gina saw just the tiniest tell-tale softening of her sharp features.
"Gentlemen, I apologize for interrupting your meal," The Admiral said nodding to each. "Lieutenant, Gina, there will be an officers meeting in my quarters this evening, 1900 hours. We have some important issues to discuss and I want everyone on the same page."
"Yes, sir," Kendra said. "I will be there."
"If this is an officers meeting, then why am I attending?" Gina asked a bit confused..
"Your expertise is requested and required," The Admiral said, her face softening for just a moment and then it faded as quickly as it came and she nodded toward the marines. "Thank you, gentleman. As you were."
The Admiral started for the door once more and Gina called after her with an all too familiar jocular tone to her voice. "And what exactly is the dress code for civilians, Admiral?"
It was nearly stunning the way the Admiral spun on her heel, clasped her hands behind her back, and then said, with a near playful smile, "Something nice, Ms. Inviere" before turning once more and heading out of the mess hall and Gina can't help the smirk on her face. Lewis and Finch gave taunting whistles.
"That was some smile the Admiral gave you, Gina," Finch said. "Is she playing favorites here or something?"
"Who the hell wouldn't play favorites with Gina? Even the Admiral can't be immune to sex," Lewis said and all three of them paused to try to imagine the Admiral in a romantic stupor over Gina.
"This is Admiral Cain, we're talking about here," Kendra said scooping up potatoes with a spoon. "No offense to Gina, but I don't see her falling so easily for the first pretty thing that comes by."
Gina sighed. "No offense taken, Lt. It is always a humbling experience being talked about as if I'm not in the room."
Finch and Lewis glanced at her and then nodded their heads and said, "Kendra's probably right."
They seemed to have figured out for themselves what worked best for their view of the world so Gina didn't push the issue. Instead, she just picked up a fork and started to eat.
This was what Gina knew about the relay station: It wasn't a relay station. Deep inside her, she knew it was a trap. She knew it even before she helped Kendra find it. It's not until she sits up naked in the bed Gaius left her in and sees the nuke he had left her that Gina wonders why she had never thought to question her orders to let the centurions inside, knowing full well that doing so would most likely expose her and she would lose everything. Is it true that only humans have this thing called free will, she will think shivering in her own skin with the nuke counting down. If cylons have to learn free will, does that make them better or worse than the humans?
The Admiral's reaction when she saw the evidence of Gina's nonhuman nature, first the quiet calm as she stared at the video feed from deck four's airlock with the other Six lying dead against a wall, and then the quick whip of her head as she whirled to look at her with surprise, betrayal...hurt, all mixed into one condemning, "My gods, get that thing off my bridge."
When she felt the barrel of the assault rifle scrape the fabric of her uniform, Gina only reacted. It was easy enough to disarm him and kill the other marine, easy enough to pull his side arm from the holster and point it directly at her Admiral. The Admiral was the life of this ship both the Admiral and Gina knew this. This is what Gina knew about death and resurrection: It's not enough to kill a body. If a soul prevails, you will still have failed.
But that look, that horrible hurt she could see swimming just beneath The Admiral's stunned surprise, that was the worst part and it stalled her trigger finger. There were plenty things to say and there were plenty things that were not said before Lieutenant Kendra Shaw took advantage of her hesitation and cold-cocked her hard with the blunt end of her weapon. Right before everything went black, Gina saw that The Admiral never took her eyes off her as she crumpled to the ground.
Gina works through the motions of arming the nuke. The knowledge is so ingrained in her brain that her fingers work through it for the comfort and familiarity it brings. The colored wires that work the timer, the trigger that sparks the chemical reaction that fires uranium into itself to cause the devastating explosion, the manual override of it all to explode when a simple button is pressed. She focuses on the work and tries to keep the memories at bay but she can't forget the sharp eyes of The Admiral as she gazed through the barrier of the brig at her to see Lt. Thorne's handiwork in the bruises and the blood and the blackened eye.
She still remembers when The Admiral dismissed the Marine guard after a suspicious phone call and then opened the cell door, remembers the way the thick soles of her boots sounded on the cold metal floor. She remembers the way The Admiral had reached over and taken her bruised face in her fingers in a touch so reminiscent of the nights when there had been starved kisses, when she'd been so desperate for her love, that it made the tears Gina had refused to show Thorne fall onto the cold metal floor.
"Does it hurt?" The Admiral had asked her in such a quiet voice and Gina stared forward biting back the words that were caught jagged in her throat. It was too late for apologies now.
My mission was only to deliver Pegasus. You were a surprise.
When Gina didn't answer, The Admiral's grasp turned cruel and her fingers felt like vices on her jaw. The Admiral leaned in and her voice was grated over her razor blade emotion.
"Good."
She pushed Gina away and straightened up, placing a hand on the small of her back, and lifted her face to the ceiling. the Admiral took a moment to breathe. Then she paced for a moment and when she finally faced her again, Gina could see a thousand thoughts hiding in the tight shoulders, the hand that reached out but then was retracted, and then the shake of her head as she turned toward the door and pounded a fist against the glass. The Marine opened the cell and The Admiral stormed out of the brig.
Gina thought The Admiral had decided to execute her. She thought it was appropriate. But that was what Gina thought would happen. It wasn't at all what did happen.
Continued...
Next: Descending into Hate.