XXXVIII.
Even though she was back in the cylon baseship and the pain seemed to have never existed, she felt tears prickling in her eyes, threatening to escape. Laura took a sharp intake of breath as she shut her eyes tightly, trying to keep them at bay. She hadn't been prepared to see that. Who would be prepared to see themselves that way? Or to see their child that way?
Her hands quickly travelled to her belly and caressed it gently, making sure her daughter was all right. It seemed as if she hadn't noticed anything; she was still moving calmly, with the occasional kick.
She suddenly felt a hand on her arm, making her eyes open immediately. There was Helo, looking at her with worry on his eyes. "Madam President?" he asked with a calm voice. "Are you okay?"
Laura closed her eyes for an instant and looked back at him as she nodded. "I'm fine" she almost whispered. "It was just… the jump" she finished, giving him a little smile. That was all; it had been one of her visions. More disturbing than they usually tended to be, but just a vision nonetheless.
"That's unusual" the Eight said when she was sure she had Laura's attention. "To jump again so quickly."
Laura looked from the Eight to the Hybrid and then to the Eight again. "What do you think it means?" The Eight didn't answer her; instead, she dug her hand deeper on the liquid she already had it and looked into the empty space with a look of concentration on her face.
"Look, it knows me" Baltar said ending his silence. He walked towards the Hybrid, making a show of himself. "It trusts me… I think." He took his eyes out from the Hybrid and looked at them, just in time to catch Laura's eye roll. "I think it even likes me, 'cause I –" He suddenly stopped talking, realizing no one was really listening to him.
She turned towards the Eight again and looked at her with curiosity. "You're getting information from this liquid?"
The Eight looked at her for an instant and nodded slightly. After that, her eyes got lost into empty space again. "The hybrid is disorganized. It's panicking" she revealed, looking at Laura. "I don't know why."
Baltar seemed to understand that was his opportunity to do something, and he quickly walked towards the Hybrid. "Tell me. Why are you jumping the ship?" he asked rising his voice.
Much to everyone's surprise, the Hybrid tensed and opened its eyes wider. "The six" it said alarmed. "The six who went among the makers is no longer. End of line. Back in the stream that feeds the ocean that feeds the stream."
The Eight quickly understood what the Hybrid was referring to. "The six" she informed them. "She means Natalie, the six who was our leader. She's either been hurt or killed back on Galactica. That's why the hybrid's panicking."
Laura was suddenly aware of what that could mean. Their leader had been killed and they had her; but, apparently, they had no intention to strike back the same way. Maybe the cylons sometimes could be more compassionate than humans, because if that had happened the other way round, she was sure neither her nor any other Colonial would have let it go as if nothing had happened. She was lucky.
She looked at the Eight. Apparently she was the one in charge at me moment. "So she's upset. Okay, fine." She was able to understand that perfectly. "Can you calm her down?" She knew what she was going to ask her was impossible, because if it could be done they would have already tried it, but she asked it anyway. "Can you tell her to jump back?"
The Eight shook her head. "It doesn't work like that. She makes her own decisions" she explained. "And we can't unplug her because now she's wired herself into life support."
Laura sighed. What could they do then? Wait until the Hybrid calmed itself and decided to jump back with the fleet? That could take a long time…
"All right," Baltar quickly intervened, "then why don't we give this a go?" he said as he walked towards the Hybrid and kneeled down before it. With a serious expression on his face, he shushed soundly, bringing a finger to his lips. For an instant, Laura thought she wouldn't be able to keep herself from laughing; fortunately, she was able to do so. The situation itself maybe wasn't funny, but with Baltar being the protagonist of it, it became all sorts of hilarious. "Hey" Baltar continued. "Hey, stop jumping the ship, all right?"
That time, Laura really had to silence the laugh that was about to leave her mouth. How could he think something so easy and stupid could work? How could he… "Calm your mind" the Hybrid suddenly said, taking Laura out of her thoughts. Damn it, Baltar's strategy had worked. "Cease countdown, cease countdown. Circulation, ventilation, control." it continued, its words losing any logical sense they could've had. "Filters. Filters. The sublime elevation."
Baltar looked towards her, with a grin of satisfaction on his lips, though Laura was able to see his surprise there. He hadn't expected it would work, just like the rest of them. "Did you see that?" he asked, widening his grin. "I just opened myself up to it, on a spiritual level..."
Before Baltar could finish his sentence, the Hybrid tensed and shouted. "Jump!"
She was there, again. She could tell it just by the sounds around her; the constant beeping of the machines, the drops falling rhythmically into an IV. Someone was breathing heavily, with difficulty. Someone else's foot was tapping the floor nervously. And, in the background of these array of sounds, there was the constant humming of Galactica's machines. She didn't need to open her eyes to know where she was.
Gathering the strength to turn around and face the scene she already knew was going on wasn't something she could do at that moment. She wasn't ready. She would never be ready for it.
Her eyes were tightly shut; helping her trying to ignore what was going on around her. She really wished she would go back to reality as soon as possible, but that didn't happen. She was still there.
"Laura, look at them" a woman's voice told her in an authoritative tone. "You can't ignore them."
She shook her head and closed her eyes even tighter. "No. I already know what's going on. I don't want to see it." She had managed to keep her voice half steady, what was more than she had expected she'd be able to do.
Elosha insisted again. "Laura, you can't ignore them. You have to see what's happening to them to be able to change things."
Laura opened her eyes and stared into her old friend's eyes. "I've already seen it. I don't need to see more of it. I don't need to…" She trailed off, confused what she had just heard. She listened closer, closing her eyes again. There was no mistake there; it was a baby's cry. A thin and desperate one. At that realization, her upper lip started quivering.
"Are you going to ignore your child's cries?" Billy asked her, placing a hand on her shoulder. Laura opened her eyes slowly and looked over her friends shoulder to see her daughter trapped inside that glass cage. "She just wants her mother" the young man whispered.
She moved her eyes from her daughter to the bed where a pale Laura lay. She could barely breathe on her own, Laura realized; she was too exhausted for that. She couldn't rise from the bed and be by her daughter's side. The other Laura looked as if the only good thing for her would be to get a long, repairing sleep to gather some strength. But she didn't do that; she stared at her daughter's incubator as if that was the only other thing in the universe apart from herself. One of her hands was being held tightly by Bill, but she didn't even notice that. Then, there was Bill. He didn't seem to be able to take his eyes off from the Laura in the bed, occasionally glancing towards their daughter. That made Laura's heart break into a million pieces.
But the small cry didn't stop; it was becoming more and more desperate every second. Laura wasn't able to take it anymore; she needed to do something about it. Without even thinking about it, her feet brought her to the incubator. She laid her palm against the glass and stared at the small form of her daughter. Too small, too fragile, too desperate. Her cries weren't stopping or calming down.
"I'm here…" she whispered, but the crying only became louder. She fought her tears back and managed to introduce her hand into the incubator despite her reservations and her blurred vision. She carefully approached her hand to her daughter and touched one of her arms lightly. "I'm here, sweetie. Mum's here" she whispered in a soothing voice, trying to calm her down. "Everything's going to be alright, sweetie" she whispered as she pressed her free hand to her belly. "Mum's going to make it be alright."
The soft cries stopped as the little girl moved her hand to catch Laura's little finger and opened her eyes slightly, as if she was really looking at her and seeing her mother. That made Laura's heart melt. She smiled sadly and raised her eyes to look at Bill and the other Laura. She saw some relief in their faces.
For the first time, Laura realized they weren't alone in the room. Lee and Kara were also there, at the other side of the bed, even if the Laura in the bed didn't seem to be aware of them; not even Bill seemed to be aware of them. But the two young people were really aware of what was going on in the room, except for Elosha, Billy and Laura's presence. They also grieved with Bill and Laura.
After a while, Laura looked back at her daughter and realized she had fallen asleep. That way, she looked even more vulnerable. Carefully, she removed her hand from the glass cage and walked towards the bed, morbidly fascinated by seeing herself in such a state.
She noticed Elosha by the other Laura's side, right next to Bill. The older woman looked at her as she whispered some words to the other Laura, loud enough for her to hear. "Don't you just hate these people?" the older woman asked, looking at all the people around the bed. Cottle had also joined them.
Laura watched herself battering her eyelashes tiredly. She heard herself breathing with difficultly and finally managing to get a word out of her throat. "No." She saw the horror in her eyes; she saw the dry trails of tears going down her own cheeks, paler than ever.
Apparently, Elosha didn't take any pity on her and just pushed harder. "Oh, but you don't love them either" the older woman stated, much to both Laura's horror. "The people in this room are the closest thing you've got to family, and you… you've been their president." She stopped and gestured around the room. "Watch them try to comfort each other." She paused again and walked towards the standing Laura, her eyes never leaving the Laura lying in the bed. "At least you haven't taken that away from them. Yet" she stated with bitterness. "You didn't rob them of their empathy. Yet." She stopped talking and let her words sink. Then, she looked at the Laura lying in the bed. "You just don't make room for people anymore. You don't love people. Is that clear enough? Practical enough for you, Madam President?"
Laura looked at Elosha in horror, with a lump on her throat. "That's not true" she said with a broken voice. "I love my daughter. I love Bill, my husband. I love Lee. I…"
Elosha looked at her sadly and shook her head. "Yes, you do, but…" she stopped and shot a look towards the Laura in the bed. "But she doesn't."
She was back in the baseship, again. Apparently, she was going to have visions with each jump. They only managed to make her feel more tired each time that she got back, and more broken-hearted. She really didn't enjoy what she was seeing in the visions, and Elosha was managing to confuse her more with each jump.
Laura looked around her and noticed everyone was looking at the Eight. She looked focused and, at the same time, a little bit shaken. She moved her hand out from the liquid and looked at all of them. "I think we're going towards the Resurrection Hub" she revealed. "I think the mission is still on."
Laura battered her eyelashes, a little bit surprised by the information, but, thinking about it, it really made sense. She shook her head and looked at Helo. "Okay… So go carry on with it" she told him. She took a couple of steps towards the man. "Could I have a word with you, Captain Agathon?"
The man looked at her and nodded. "Of course, Madam President" he said as he walked closer to Laura, letting her take his arm. "What is it, Sir?"
She smiled slightly and directed him away from the rest of people in the room. "I was wondering if… Could I ask you a favour?" she asked grimacing a little bit. He quickly nodded. "It has been a long day so far and it's going to be even longer… I was wondering if I could use your raptor to get some rest."
"Of course" Helo quickly said, smiling. "You really didn't need to ask."
She wasn't sure if she had truly slept at all, but her mind was clearer than it had been before coming to the raptor. Ever since she had got into the raptor and closed her eyes, her conscious and unconscious thoughts had started mixing, somehow managing to awake her mind. When Helo called her, taking her out of her state of trance, her eyelids still felt heavy, but her body felt like she had really gotten a good night's sleep. "Madam President?" he called again, as she opened her eyes slowly and brought the book in her hands closer to her body. Searider Falcon, Bill's favourite book. "Sir? Hope I didn't wake you."
Laura opened her eyes wider and smiled. "Uh, come in" she said as she left the book in the raptor. Then, she looked at the young man again. "Thank you for the use of your...your raptor. I needed some familiar surroundings" she said smiling. "Don't worry; I'll give it back to Lt. Pike the second you need it." A smirk appeared on her lips. Oh, yes. The rest had been good, especially because it had been free of Gaius Baltar and any disturbing vision.
He looked at her seriously and cleared his throat. "About that" he started, with a serious tone Laura wasn't used to in the man. "This mission, it's very risky."
She sobered up and looked at him seriously. "If there's even a chance that we can go in and blow up that Hub and end cylon resurrection for all cylons forever, we must take it" she stated, keeping her voice steady. "I cannot back away from that." And, she thought, Bill wouldn't back away from that either. They all had been really clear about the importance of the mission. Maybe it wouldn't end up giving them the way to Earth as the cylons had promised them, but at least they would have enemies that were mortal, that was more than they had at the beginning of the mission.
The man nodded his head in understanding. "Yes, Sir."
When he was about to stand up and leave the raptor, Laura put a hand on his arm to stop him. Then, she stared into his eyes. "If and when D'Anna comes back from the dead, bring her to me" she said without even blinking.
Helo looked at her confused. "I think the cylons think that she'll be interrogated by both groups together."
She nodded. "I'm sure they do." Then, she stopped for a couple of seconds, looking at the man. "Bring her to me" she insisted. "She knows the identities of the five cylons in our fleet. It is a matter now of human security, and I will not let the cylons have audience to that discussion. I want to talk to her alone."
"Yes, sir" he quickly said, but he looked at her like she had disappointed him. Up to a point, Laura could understand him, but it was no moment to be diplomatic. Her people and a place they could call home were in play, and the risks of trusting the cylons on that one were too big.
Laura shook her head. She was the President. She couldn't be taking those kinds of risks. She couldn't let anything jeopardize their objective. "Good." On a personal level, being truthful with herself, she was almost sure she –as a person, not as President- would regret her decision someday, but it was the best thing she could do given the circumstances.