Title: Originals
Author: RangerLord
Word count: 1,484
Rating: PG - Mild Language
Summary: A glimpse into where the 'templates' for the human-appearing Cylons may have originated. Occurs between Seasons One and Two.
Classifications: Existing characters/Character development. Boomer, Six, Aaron, Leoben.
Spoilers: Various Sharon/Boomer plot-lines throughout Season One, also "Flesh and Bone" and "Kobol's Last Gleaming - Part 2".
Warnings: Lots of reality shifts here, read carefully.
Archive: YES (Please notify author if I didn't submit this personally.)
Disclaimer: Battlestar Galactica and all related recognizable concepts belong to Glen Larson, Ronald D. Moore and/or others involved in the Battlestar Galactica series on the Sci-FI Channel, 2003-2005. All other characters and references are copyright © 2005 RangerLord. Keep yer mitts off, without the author's permission.

Publication History:

Published 18 June 2005 on the author's web site.
Posted 22 June 2005 on the Battlestar Galactica forum on the SciFi Channel website.
This work of fiction remains the intellectual property of the author. All rights reserved. Commentary, questions and constructive criticism are welcome - please review!

Thank you, and enjoy!

Originals

Sharon sat on the cot, her head cradled in her hands. In the half light, she looked at the floor between her bare feet. Gray. Like the walls, the cot, the mattress. Like her mood. Colorless. Lifeless. She closed her eyes now, pressed them against the heels of her palms. That made gray-green and purple hues flash across her vision. It made her eyes hurt, too. She shook her head, put her hands down on the edge of the cot, leaning forward. She arched her back, throwing her head back to look at the ceiling, dark hair falling around her shoulders. The ceiling hadn't changed. Still the same glowing squares of light, two rows of four, high overhead. She rose, scowling. Something tugged at her consciousness, requesting her attention. She felt vaguely irritated by it. She pushed the insistent thought aside, stepping to the lavatory and mirror on the nearby wall. Running cold water, she splashed her face and dried off with a gray towel. She looked at the face in the mirror. Sharon Valerii, she thought. Born, Troy Mining Settlement, Aerilon System. Orphaned by The Accident. The explosion. Yes, that was tragic, both her parents lost. The Colonial Navy was her family now. She was a Lieutenant j.g., a Raptor pilot.

A Raptor pilot. Frak! That was the thought circling her consciousness, looking for a chance to strike. I'm late. It's oh-six-ten and I was due on the flight deck at oh-six-hundred sharp. The CAG's gonna have my ass. Late! Frak! Sharon looked down, checked her flight suit, then turned toward the door. Lee Adama would be fuming by now. He'd cast accusing glances at the Chief, who would try to stay busy and out of the CAG's way. The Chief wasn't really like that, she knew, but when it came to issues surrounding her, surrounding them, he walked on eggshells. She'd have to hear it from him as well, later.

As she crossed the length of the narrow room, she practiced what she would say. Yes, sir, I know I'm late. No sir, I'm not a nugget anymore. It won't happen again, sir. What happened? Well, sir, I... since the mission with Racetrack... nuking the basestar... I can't... I don't...

I don't know.

Like hitting a stone wall, realization struck her. She didn't know why she was late. Sharon suddenly remembered Lee, in irons? Shaking the Commander's hand. No, the gun. Her gun! One shot, another. A pool of blood, life flooding across the tactical chart table. Throwing up that morning. Shooting the other her. The sharp crack of Helo's pistol, and the burning pain as the slug tore into her shoulder. She reached the door, suddenly clammy and shaking. She felt as though her skin must be gray. She stood there, naked in the half light, reaching for the door, frozen in fear and revulsion. And hatred. Was it real? Had she truly shot William Adama in front of the Gods and everyone? Was she really... one of them? What of Helo's child? Her child? Was it...?

The door handle turned smoothly, slowly. Click. The door swung open to reveal Shelley and Aaron, her friends. Shelley wore a smart red suit; Aaron was dressed in his usual jacket, with a casual shirt open at the neck. The hall outside was gray. Suddenly she felt safe, relaxed. She forgot about... what? Something unpleasant, frightening. Shelley was here now, and Sharon felt much better. Oh, and Aaron too. He was a friend. They would talk, and she'd feel focused again. That's how it was, how it always was.

He paced the long axis of his cell. He must have walked a thousand miles back and forth across those twenty feet. There should be a rut in the gray concrete floor by now. You don't know a man until you've walked a day in his shoes. Well, he'd like to see the Warden try a few days in his. They couldn't wear him down. He was like the floor, cold, gray, impenetrable. He stopped at one end of the cell, looking into the mirror. His hair was cropped short, and several days' stubble showed on his cheeks. He looked lean, hungry. He stared into his eyes. He knew them, knew the face in the mirror. Those eyes. Fathomless, the eyes of a deep thinker, a philosopher, a poet. That's why the Warden detested him, why he kept ending up here in Solitary despite his ever so polite behavior. The Warden hated him, his eyes, his ideas.

He paced again. He looked up at the lights, eight featureless squares high above that cast meager illumination across his world. He used them to gauge his position, traversed the room and wheeled around. Again he crossed the cell, another uncounted pass. Eyes still on the lights, he wheeled around once more. Suddenly off balance, he remembered he was prone to vertigo. He stumbled to the side and his head connected with the gray concrete wall.

Cr-rack!

Pain rocked his skull, settling in his jaw. One of her thugs hit him again. Starbuck? Kara! The stink of sweat and death and cigar smoke filled his nostrils. He drew in a deep breath, savoring the memory. Suddenly he was gasping, his lungs filled with water. He opened his eyes, only to look uncomprehending at the bottom of the water basin as the last of his air bubbled out his nose. The last of his life, taken by Kara Thrace and her two heavies. He found himself wondering about his soul. Leopold Benjamin Conoy, genius and serial murderer, was suddenly very frightened that God would weigh his soul and find him lacking. He raised his head from the lavatory full of water, sucking in lung-fulls of air. He exhaled, and drew breath again as water ran down his face to soak into his gray prison fatigues. He grabbed a gray towel.

Warden! His voice roared in the narrow, high-ceilinged cell. They can't treat me like this, even if we are on The Rock. Even in a supermax on the very edge of Colonial space, a convicted man has rights. I'm a human being, for the God's sake! Stop treating me like a tin can! He'd get the Warden down here, and they'd talk, and the Warden would relent and let him go back to the general population. As small and motley as it was, that would be better than Solitary. He'd talk to the Warden; they'd match wits and he'd let the gray-uniformed man win the mental sparring. That would get him back to the yard.

The door handle turned smoothly. slowly. Click. He heard, and turned to see the door swing open, revealing Aaron and the lovely dark-haired woman. He remembered. They were here to talk to him about his delusions. She was with Aaron. What was her name? Yes, Sharon. Sharon, with those eyes that bored deep into him, hinting at thoughts no one dared speak. They were here to talk, to make him feel better. They would help him find his way back from where he had been. The place where people fled and died anyway, where he was the monster that pursued them. They were here to help him, again, to remember that he was human.

The four stood in the gray corridor, outside the control room. Sharon glanced down the length of the hall, nearly featureless save for the twelve numbered doors. Their shift here was nearly finished, and she wanted reports on the originals. She had been the principal with Leo. Losing himself twice recently had rattled him, and he'd retreated deeper into his memories of prison. He seemed to respond well to her presence, though, and she felt she had his situation under control. Aaron agreed.

Sharon had been the second with Shelley; Leoben had worked as principal. A siren with an adopted innocence, she was alternately demure and lascivious. She both fascinated and irritated Sharon. Leoben had handled her well enough. Aaron was doing fine; Leoben and Six had worked with him. He was, as ever, the survivor. Six and Aaron, though, expressed concern about the other Sharon.

She seemed to be having some trouble coping. Aaron was not surprised, but it was part of the plan and he was not in a position to act upon his disapproval. She was having difficulty with all the emotional turmoil, the pregnancy on Caprica, shooting her other self in Helo's presence. In the fugitive human fleet she had begun to suspect her true nature. She had been rejected by Chief Tyrol, turned a gun on herself, and later she had shot her own commander. The operation on Ragnar was affecting her as well. She wasn't capable of handling so many conflicting situations all coming to a crux at once.

After all, she was just a human.

End of Story

(Author's Note: Don't try to figure out the Ragnar reference, it's a tie-in to another of my stories.)