A soft touch to her shoulder roused her and before she could think Laura shot upright, nearly passing out again from the blinding pain in her head at the sharp movement. Bad move, Laura, bad, bad move, she chided herself as she slumped back against the wall. Unceremoniously, she leaned to the side and threw up what little remained in her stomach. There was no dramatic, where am I? Along with the pain in her head, the blinding lights glaring down at her, the soreness in her chest, the full extent of her situation had immediately registered.
Buckle up; at least you didn't spit up any blood, she told herself, using the stern voice she'd so often used with some of her more wayward students. Probably then, the knee to the gut had not done any internal damage, small mercies.
"Madam Pr…Ma'am?" The voice was familiar, the slip up telling, so Laura wasn't surprised, when she looked up, to find the Sharon model looking down at her. What did surprise her was the look of concern in those familiar eyes.
"What are you doing here?" she asked, chagrined that her voice wasn't as steady as she'd like it to be, wasn't obeying her directives.
The young woman – Cylon, she reminded herself harshly – avoided meeting her gaze, instead focusing her eyes on the spot just below Laura's left eye, where she could feel her pulse, her heartbeat, throbbing in the cut Doral had left her with.
"Making sure you're alright." Her voice was soft, wavering, and Laura guessed there was something else there but she was unable to focus on it through the blinding pain in her head. Through the ache, the thought surfaced that this was not Sharon. Sharon had been in Galactica's brig when the fleet jumped away. Boomer then, she intuited, the resurrected version of the model that had shot Adama. Angry at the affront of being tended to by this of all Cylons, Laura sat up a little straighter chewing on her lip to stifle a groan. She caught the sorrow and disgust in Boomers gaze, a fleeting look of pity.
"I'm fine, so leave." Laura turned her head away. Defiance and anger were all she had now; she didn't want their pity, especially not from this model. Boomer had nearly killed Bill Adama, the man they all depended on for survival, a truth that had been drilled home even more, when in his absence, Saul Tigh had taken over guarding the fleet and had frakked things up to the point of ruin. Yet Sharon had done so much to help them, had risked herself on their behalf, had risked her unborn baby on Laura's own behalf. It was too confusing, especially in her present, befuddled state. Better keep it simple. She couldn't think of their oppressors in any other terms; they were things, they were machines, not human; if she let herself think otherwise, then the knowledge of what she'd done to Boomer's counterpart in the fleet would surely undo her.
"I'm not leaving until I check you out. Now hold still." Boomer's fingers were on her chin, exerting just enough pressure to force her face around again. Laura closed her eyes and shivered when Boomer's hands started to probe her bruised face, none too gently, and fire crackled along her cheekbone. The Cylon cleaned dried blood away with a dampened cloth and then there was the cool sting of ointment being rubbed into the cut decorating her cheekbone. Antiseptic, Laura's mind provided, as she recognized the hospital smell.
"There. That should heal with minimal scarring. What else?"
At Laura's continued silence Boomer threw her hands up in disgust. "You know they will keep doing this until you break," she said. "I can't save you from that, I can at least make you a bit more comfortable, now tell me, you're concussed, aren't you?"
"Yeah," she said; no sense in denying the apparently obvious. "Nothing to be done for that, unless bed rest and waking me every few hours with a nice cup of tea are an option?" She opened her eyes, looked at Boomer and saw her duck her head, saw shame in her and something like regret. "No, I didn't think it was."
Boomer quickly ran her fingers through Laura's hair, located the large knot that had formed on the back of her head and reported that at least she wasn't bleeding. As the Cylon looked at her pupils and pronounced them uneven and dilated, Laura couldn't help but see the young woman she had once ordered to find as many survivors as she could; to bring them back so that they could form a convoy and get to a safer place. That had been back when the world had ended. She'd just been told she had terminal breast cancer, hours later the Twelve Colonies had been nuked, the human race had been all but obliterated and the Presidency had been thrust upon her by default. Laura had accepted the responsibility and, seeing no other alternative, she'd made the one decision that had shaped all her actions afterwards; to gather together the last remnants of humanity, to preserve as many lives as possible. Gods, how much had changed since then. It was almost laughable to think that things had been simpler then, there at the end of the world. Cylon equaled bad, human equaled good, and that was that. All these shades of grey nowadays had a way of making her head spin.
Laura's eyes locked with Boomer's and something told her that Boomer remembered too. She found herself opening her mouth with no idea what she was going to say but a sound at the door drew her attention. Boomer quickly rose to her feet, moved away from her and Laura felt a profound sense of disappointment, regretting the lost opportunity. She swiveled her gaze to the door and to her dismay, the Cavil model stood in the entryway. The menace he exuded was almost palpable.
"You're looking better, Laura," Cavil said, as he entered her cell. "I see Eight took good care of you."
Laura slowly turned to face him, her head was still killing her but the nausea had passed, for the moment. She was in a fighting mood. She was done feeling scared, done with the weakness of her limbs, the pounding in her head. She'd already done this once before, carried on with her duties to the fleet through the breakdown of her body, to the point of death, fought tooth and nail, had been sick and weak and hurting until she couldn't stand it anymore, and had prevailed. She was damned if she was going to let a bunch of skin jobs get the better of her now. "Is that the policy from now on? Beat me up then patch me up?"
"Oh no, no, no, no." He laughed. "Rest assured that was a onetime thing." The patching up not the beating up, Laura knew from the look on his face. "We wouldn't want you to walk out of here with the mother of all shiners, what would people think?"
She threw him one of her impervious glares, the one that worked so well on troublesome Quorum members, as she slowly started to climb to her feet. For a moment the world slipped sideways and she feared she was going to pass out again, then the feeling passed. "So at one point I am going to walk out of here?"
"Only if you cooperate, Laura; only if you cooperate." He started to circle around her, and it was making her dizzy, his voice seemed to come from everywhere at once, booming like a distant explosion, then whispering intimately in her ear.
"You know I can't." There was a blotch of color on the wall near the door, old blood soaked into the concrete, she fastened her eyes upon it, let it anchor her to reality while her anger grew like a cancer.
"You can, and you will." Cavil hissed after a long beat. "It's only a matter of time."
He signaled and in walked the Doral and Leoben models. They momentarily stood in the doorway, shoulder to shoulder, obscuring her view, the loss of her focal point on the wall setting her adrift.
"It's a frakking reunion," Laura said, more to herself than anyone else.
Leoben and Doral stepped further into her cell and stationed themselves to either side of her. Doral wore his customary vacuous stare while Leoben wore a beatific expression, like he was seeing something wondrous.
"Still with the sense of humor, Laura." Leoben said. "I like that about you." His hands were clasped behind his back tightly, as if he were afraid that, given the freedom, they would caress her or hurt her of their own accord. Looking at his face, Laura was not sure which.
"I'm a funny gal." Fury was making her reckless.
"You're a riot," Doral said. His face was always so blank, his voice bland, but she'd already experienced his sudden shift into terrible violence and knew he was perhaps the most dangerous of the four models surrounding her. He regarded her for a moment, balled his fists and brought his right hand up, raking his knuckles painfully over the bruised side of her face, a warning of things to come. "Now give us their names."
She didn't trust her voice enough to reply.
"Laura," Leoben said as he stepped closer, invading her personal space, "these people betrayed you. You gave them everything, did things nobody should have to do, to ensure their survival, and they discarded you like an old rag when Baltar started his song and dance about this frakking mud ball. And then, when he revealed how truly weak he is, they turned right around and laid their burdens at your feet again. They let you down while you've sacrificed everything for them, why protect them at all?"
"You'll never understand," she seethed. Danger, he's dangerous, don't listen to him, her mind supplied as she reeled at the prescience of his statement; at how he seemed to be able to read her thoughts, hit her where it hurt the most. She remembered Adama's words, his model was insidious, able to plant the seeds of doubt and mistrust, as he'd done before, making her believe for a short while that Adama was a Cylon. She adjusted her earlier assessment, reined in her rage a little in favor of clear thought. This, unmistakably, was the most dangerous model.
"Then make me understand." His face was so close his breath stirred the fine hairs at her temple and it was all she could do to suppress a shudder. "I admire your dedication to these people, Laura, I truly do, but I don't understand."
"And you never will, because it involves concepts you know nothing about. Concepts like duty, loyalty, and faith."
As she spoke, she realized the truth of her words and it felt like a burden being lifted, despite the circumstances. He'd hit her with surface truths only. Yes, the people of the fleet had let her down; she had done the same to them during her Presidency, on more than one occasion. There was bitterness there, surely, and regret. But they were all, she as well as the rest of the fleet, only human, fallible, trying to do their best under impossible circumstances, and they had all been so very, very tired of running.
"Don't even start on that. Your people are scattered in their faith at best, unfocussed." He circled around her, his face never more than a few inches from hers.
"I'm not speaking for them; I'm no longer their President, do try to keep up." Careful, Laura, she told herself. Airlock that temper of yours before it gets you into more trouble. She took a deep breath to steady herself. "I can only speak for myself. And I have faith, it's my faith I'm talking about."
"Faith in what? You are caught here, end of line, you're never getting off this rock. What do you hold onto now, Laura? What is it that you put your faith in? The Lords of Kobol? They've deserted you, you must see that."
She drew herself up to her full height. "Perhaps. But then again, the Gods lift those who lift each other, and I have faith that when we do just that, lift each other, the Gods will always be with us. I have faith in destiny, hope, survival, life."
His hot breath on her cheek, his strange blue eyes searching her, his hand trailing up her arm, he repulsed her and yet she was fascinated by him, a dangerous model indeed.
"Ah life." His lips whispered against her temple, his hand on her shoulder held her in place as she tried to wrench herself away. "Let me tell you a secret. What life you have now is just a temporary reprieve. You were the dying leader, you always have been, and you will be again, soon."
He smiled at her then, sketching a little bow in her direction and stepping away, and she couldn't hide her shock. Couldn't wrap her mind around what he'd just said and while she was still off balance, Doral stepped into view, his red faced rage even more jarring after Leoben's beatific smile.
"Don't presume to tell us about life. Your precious insurgency kills indiscriminately, Humans and Cylons alike. Just today, a bomb took out five of us, along with two of your own people. They were alive and now they're dead. You did that."
"No." Her denial was automatic but her heart sank at the thought of more death, more of her people killed, the remainder of the fleet, being decimated one by one.
Leoben stepped up to her, whispered in her ear "At this point, only you can stop all this death and bloodshed."
"I'm just a schoolteacher; I have no power to stop anything."
Doral spat on the floor and stepped away from her and Cavil took his place. "Laura, you have to cooperate with us, there's really no other option."
"No…" As she started to voice her protest, something slammed into her from behind, and without transition she was down on all fours, re-bruising already bruised knees. Looking up she saw it was Doral who'd slammed into her, his fingers were clasped together in a two-handed grip, raised high above his head, ready to strike again. Vaguely, she heard Boomer voice a protest, then, pain exploded everywhere as fists and feet laid into her. She heard the crack as one of her ribs gave, was just able to bite back a scream as her shoulder was wrenched from its socket, felt blood begin to trickle down her hipbone when a booted foot landed a glancing blow there. It was too much; she hadn't been built for this. When darkness finally came for her, she let it carry her away willingly.