Lee felt hollowed out. His world was gone, blown to hell, he'd watched innocent people get slaughtered, and in the end found out the mechanism was humanity itself, warped beyond recognition by a machines imitation. To add insult to injury, before he could eat, sleep or drink, all of which he desperately needed, Lee had to argue with a civilian.
He'd confronted Anders in the engineering room, far enough from the inner bunker to keep any prying eyes away from the bomb he was about to drop.
...wishyouweredead...
"... haven't you scrapped the damn thing yet?"
...ambrosiabottlesclinking...
Lee wasn't actually listening to the man in front of him. He was more focused on getting out of the room than the words coming out of Anders' mouth. His head was too full, too many things had happened and he could feel the telltale signs of another break itching at the edges of his consciousness. The few words that did get through only served to rub the knotted nerves exposed by the events of the last few days. Anders was in front of him barking his head off like a Picon pit bull, going on about how they couldn't trust a Cylon, that the people had a right to know about the danger the Major was putting them in. All of which Lee ignored in favor of surpressing his ever growing anger at the athlete's presumption.
...frakkingasshole...
"That thing is a clear danger to these people. If it ever got out..."
...handmeetinghischeek...
The athlete's own fear was obvious, fear of events outpacing him and his influence, however much that might be. Lee knew the C-buck thought that if he didn't keep a handle on things, him and his team might opt to leave them twisting. Which almost made him chuckle since he'd seriously considered that option not long ago. Lee couldn't figure out why he continued to try to reason with the man in front of him. He heard himself explain distractedly the inherent danger of that kind of fear and suspicion.
...angerrunningthroughhim...
"...right to know. At least with this they could be on the watch for..."
...tearsslidingdown...
In retrospect, Lee knew he should have delayed the argument, gotten himself some down time. But something about Anders had told Lee that this wouldn't wait. Machines had crossed over into flesh, illustrating how screwed they all were, making his job ten times harder than it already was. If everyone in the bunker knew, it would be a very short walk to tearing each other apart in fear. Lee knew they couldn't keep it a secret for long. Not in the close quarters of the bunker, not with manpower stretched as thin as it was. That unfortunate fact, combined with the maddening frustration Anders seemed to effortlessly arouse, had Lee's head spinning.
...wishyouweredead...
"If you won't tell them, I will."
With that declaration Lee's focus narrowed abruptly. Anders had declared himself a threat, and, as such, his life expectancy shortened to the amount of time it took to walk to the door. Lee formulated the plan on autopilot. Anders would turn his back, walk toward the door, Lee's knife would be out, then inbetween the C-bucks ribs, piercing the lung, preventing the man from crying out, leaving it in, both hands would snap the neck and Lee would never have to deal with him again.
There wasn't any debate. His mission, the purpose to which he was devoting the rest of his short life, was to insure the stability and survival of these hapless civilians for as long as possible. Any threat to that, even that of a frightened and volatile man, was an obstacle to be removed.
Time slowed as the athlete began to turn and walk away. Lee's hand moved to grip the combat knife hanging on his hip, about to unsheath it and bury it into the back of the incredibly irritating man in front of him.
Before he could even take a step, Achilla appeared in front of him as if materializing out of thin air. She startled Lee so badly that his hand halted mid-motion, the texture of the grip only slightly brushing against his fingertips. He saw Anders already across the room talking to Dion through the door. His tunnel vision subsided like a curtain being pulled back, expanding Lee's awareness. With mounting alarm he noticed details of the room snap sharply into focus. Sensory information came flooding in at a pace that left Lee overwhelmed.
...astheyaresmashed...
The florescent lights casting cold light into every corner offset by the dozens of illuminated buttons and screens of the control panels. The smooth grey of the concrete walls, the slate color of the equipment and lockers containing small arms. Dion's cheeks flexing in a disarming smile as he led Anders away, employing his usual charms to diffuse the situation. Achilla was staring intently at his face, reading his body language in a moment of stillness.
...incoherenthatefilledwords...
Achilla held her hands slightly away from her body, at an angle Lee recognized as readiness to move swifter than the eye could see to stop him. He realized that his own hand was gripping the hilt of his knife, undoubtedly leading Achilla to believe it still was a threat. He released the knife and slowly brought his hands in front of him, turning his palms outward, showing her than he wasn't going to move against her. She immediately began to relax, though he could still see a measure of concern in her eyes. So much was running through his head that he couldn't form the words to assure his second in command that he was alright.
...herwalkingawaysuddencalm...
Except Lee wasn't alright. The emotions he'd been holding at the edges were steadily creeping in. His attempts to keep from being overwhelmed were an exercise in desperate futility. The heightened awareness only served to strengthen the advance with every heartbeat, and the thin fabric of self control he'd fought to maintain unravelled like an old carpet.
...hewasrepeatingthegrade...
All he could do was slowly back away, away from the situation, away from Achilla, awary from the door that held all those people beyond it with their complications. Lee's retreat was hampered by the monitor console, the backs of his legs hit the utilitarian swivel chair, sending it off to the side, sending him and his lower back into the console. Not hard enough to hurt but enough to alert Lee to his compromised awareness. Slowly he slid down to the floor, hands drawn in against his chest, confined by his bent legs.
...you hold onto that one thing...
Lee knew he looked pathetic sitting there, he sussed Achilla's mounting unease at his unprecedented actions. Lee tried to get a grip before he completely flew apart. In an effort to relax, he extended his legs along the floor, attempting to release the tension coiled in his muscles.
...curve of her shoulders feel of her lips...
Like a man drowning, he held on with a grip that wouldn't loosen even after death. The terror hit bone deep when Lee realized this was it, this was his breaking point. He needed to do something or he wasn't going to come back from this.
"Sir?"
Lee tried to look her in the eye, but his body refused to cooperate and his gaze remained resolutely fixed on the floor. His breath came harsher than normal, scraping at his throat and teeth, the words were coughed up more than spoken.
...hebringsthemoutside...
"I need..."
...theweightofthebottles...
He remembered what the psychologist had once told him, that when people felt dizzy they reached out and grasp an anchor to stabalize them. Lee remembered thinking at the time that the old bag hadn't reached out to grasp anything in a long time. But in a sudden clarity he understood, and reached.
...tearsslidingdownhisface...
"I need you to just be here."
...herunevensteps...
Lee forced himself to look at her then. She had never, in the ten years he'd known her, looked so stunned, shocked beyond belief. She didn't move for a moment, and a stab of fear went through him. For the first time in in a very long time, he was afraid, afraid that she would leave, unable to deal with the mountain of burden he carried and walk away.
...wordsrainingdown...
"Just stay in here."
...hotangerrunningthroughhim...
He tried not to make it sound like begging, but it came out as a plea anyway, a whisper of soft desperation too small to carry far in the nearly empty room. The despair in his tone seemed to snap Achilla out of her immobility. Her expression was one of indecision and she hesitated for a moment before turning to walk toward the door. For a few seconds Lee was certain his fate was sealed, until she stopped, closing the door in front of her, locking it, and returning to sit by his side.
...herhandmeetinghischeek...
His gaze dropped back to the floor between his feet. He gripped his legs above the knee, in an attempt to keep himself physically grounded while his mind tried to reorient itself in reality. He started to panic as he realized the tempest was in fact it accelerating. Slowly crawling up his throat. Tears burning in his eyes, he couldn't fight the words as they pushed their way out of his mouth.
...hespuntotheground...
"My mother was an alcoholic. I thought that if she didn't have the ambrosia, she wouldn't get drunk, she wouldn't hit me. I went through the house, found every stash I could, took it outside and smashed each one on the porch. Got through most of it before she woke up. She hit me, I lost my balance and landed in the pile of glass. She walked away while I was bleeding out."
...brokenambrosiabottlescut...
The words fell off his tongue and out of his mouth, pouring into the air like a stream into the sea, said and done. The turmoil faded into the back of his mind, leaving Lee exhausted and weak. Slowly but surely he began reassembling himself, shifting his limbs in their sockets, assuring himself of his own solidity. Bending his knees to support his elbows, he let his hands dangle limply in the air. Lee rested his head on the console behind him, and allowed the air filtration dry the errant tears on his face, the salt itching his skin.
...a thumb running across one of the scars on his wrist...
He didn't feel empty, he felt vacant, a void in the environment, consuming space but giving nothing back. Courtesies, propriety, restraint and considerations fell away from him. No longer having the energy to keep them in place, he spoke.
"We got beaten by machines that want to make babies, now we have to babysit these civvies, and I don't know if I can do it without murdering half of them. We're frakked anyway. The Cylons took us completely by surprise and now they're just doing the cleanup. It's only a matter of time before they find us, a month, six months, maybe even a year, and it'll all be over."
Lee was good at accepting things that were done, there wasn't much point in dwelling. But he couldn't help but wonder what was going on in Achilla's head. She was one of the few people he couldn't really predict.
"Could be worse."
Lee snorted incredulously, but her face was open and sympathetic. No pity, just a kind acceptance that he had only seen a few times before. He chuckled, not at the statement, but the fact that a few hours ago she'd been ready to sterilize him with a swift kick, it was strange how quickly things changed.
"How do you figure?"
"We could be stuck on Saggitaron."
Stuck on a planet where the medical facilities were antiquated at best, surrounded by hundreds of anti-government militia, some of whom knew him by his face...yeah it could be worse.
"If it's as you say, only a matter of time, then what's the mission, sir?"
Her question was a serious one, and for a moment Lee blanked. but he remembered the decision he had come to in the Caprican forest before finding the flyboy and his frakbot. Settling his gaze once again on the space in front of him, Lee forced his brain back to business.
"Keep the civilians alive as long as possible."
Her grim expression echoed his own thoughts fairly clearly silence of the room, disgust at having been reduced to performing such a futile and inane task.
"Surviving isn't going to be enough sir. They'll need a goal, something to do, to keep their minds going, a mission of their own."
Lee had already considered the same thing. There were few options, but he knew exactly what Achilla was suggesting.
"A resistance? It'd be like throwing cotton at a tank."
Which was true, the best they could do was irritate the Cylons. Their dominance was complete and iron-clad, at least from what he had seen. If their mission was to keep the civvies alive, since it was going to be a complicated dance of countermeasures, guerilla tactics. Exhausting and highly risky, since the group of survivors was small enough that if one thing went wrong, and the Cylons managed to get a punch through their defenses, they wouldn't recover.
"We're frakked anyway, might as well die doing what we know. Also might keep your mind on the mission and off murdering Anders."
Lee swiveled his head to look at her; their eyes meet, and a smile tugged the corners of their lips.
"Maybe."
They sat there for a good moment, no words were necessary. Lee felt the place where the memory once sat and festered, now vacant, a wound that was cleaned and ready to heal. Someone knew his secret, the one no one else in the worlds knew. And now that it was out, it seemed ridiculous that he had kept it to himself for so long. The heavens didn't come crashing down, children hadn't run screaming down the halls. He almost missed the weight of it on his shoulders.
"Where'd Dion take Anders?
Having already lowered herself to the floor for him Achilla did not deign to stand. Her face shifted; what had been soft concern was now slightly tinged with seriousness.
"They're down in the medical bay, Dion's pulling out all the stops to calm him down. Maybe get him to be more reasonable. What are we going to do about Anders, sir?"
For a brief moment Lee's had itched for his knife, still sheathed behind his back. But the moment passed, and now he was left with an immensly difficult operation, no chance of success, and a certainty of death. Sighing to himself, Lee shook his head.
"Well, if this bunch is going to put together an effective resistance they got to know about the flesh toasters. Figure we let the C-bucks in on the news, give them some kind of basic outline. Later we'll make sure we have an actual plan and hope I survive all the civvies' mistakes."
Seeing his determination return, Achilla stood. She followed Lee out the door, and they soon fell into step, making the long walk to Med Bay.
"Where's Helo?"
"Sitting in the Security Hub. Still in shock."
If Lee were a sympathetic man, he would understand and feel for the man, the girl he had fell head over heels for was the enemy, and had been using him from the beginning. But Lee had very little sympathy for anyone who let themselves be deceived by something so obvious.
"Good. Let him stew for a bit."
Lee realized he had a dilemma. Achilla was going through the same mud as him; it was an unspoken agreement that if either of them had something to say, they would say it. But Lee had just confessed a secret that had been haunting him for thirteen years, and found himself pushed into a realm of vulnerability that he'd never broached with the woman walking next to him.
"You holding up alright?"
She didn't look at him, replying with a straight face.
"I'm alright. Fortunately I'm not as big of a pussy as you are, sir."
Achilla chuckled at his comical grimace. Lee thought it was nice to know that their relationship hadn't changed because of his admission. But as their footsteps echoed through the featureless, grey concrete halls, he couldn't quite let go of the dig.
"So when did you and Dion start sleeping together?"
Achilla halted mid-step a couple feet from the left turn to the corridor that led to the Med Bay entrance. Lee swaggered a few more steps before he turned to look at her. The shock on her face made him want to laugh out loud, but knowing her, he wouldn't live long enough to enjoy it. Instead he plastered on the biggest shit eating grin he could manage without straining his face.
"Thought I missed that, didn't you?"
The shock reverted instantly to the death glare he was so fond of and she stalked toward him, irritation growling with every footstep. And while the flak he was going to catch for the rest of his life was going to be painful, it was worth catching her off guard for once. His internal smugness was short lived, however, as she passed by him with a verbal punch to the arm.
"At least I'm getting some."
He stood stunned and gaping for a moment; it was a low blow, because it was true. But not willing to let her have the last word, he followed her around the bend, his voice raised in incredulity.
"Hey! I'll have you..."
The blood and bone stung his skin as they slammed into his face. The coppery taste on his tongue letting him know the blast of matter had caught him mid word. A second later a heavy weight slammed into his chest, dragging him down to the ground. Lee fell against the wall, keeping himself upright for a moment, before slowly sinking down into a sitting position.
The ringing in his ears told him the narrow corridor had amplified the sound of the gunshot, creating a world of white noise, allowing him to focus on the feeling of warm blood dripping down the front of his neck and into his shirt. It took a couple shakes of his head to get the blood out of his eyes, blinding him, before he could look at the body laying against him. He noticed then that she was on her back, head resting on his shoulder, cradled between his legs. She felt relaxed, limp, resting against him with an intimacy they had never shared. Oddly enough he felt relaxed too, both arms wedged beneath her armpits, one wrapped around her stomach, the other gripping her shoulder. His fingers slid through the blood on her skin.
The next cluster of shots added to the ringing in his ears. The world outside their embrace was an illegible blur easily ignored. Slowly he moved the hand on her shoulder out from under her armpit, soaked undershirt sticking to his skin, and smoothed her hair out of her face. The light colors of the bone, fat and brain were a vivid contrast against her blue black skin. There wasn't much left of the right side of her face, the bullet had punched through her nose, caught her cheek and collapsed most of the skull, exposing her sinus cavity, eye ball, and tongue as it ripped through.
It was her eyes, the look of surprise muted by a dullness only caused by death, that set him off. The sudden surge of raw emotion filled his throat, pushing upwards, lodging in the back of his mouth, choking him. Lee's face crumpled, and a tiny cry, barely audible, escaped him as he hugged her tightly to his chest. Her lack of response only fueled the searing pain in his body.
Lee tried, tried so hard, but he couldn't keep the anguished scream from passing his lips. It was long. It was loud. It echoed through the entirety of the bunker, burning itself into everyone's memory. The body that had once been Achilla stared at nothing.
...the sound of her walking away.
AN: Just letting you all know I am still writing, this story will go on, it will just take awhile, so a special thank you to all the wonderful readers who are still following this story.