Title: Lines of Scripture
Rated: PG
Characters: Helo/Boomer
Genre: general, angst, romance (a little bit)
Spoilers: Only S2 TV Guide summaries. Beyond that, it's all me writing whatever creeps into my mind.
Summary: He doesn't regret being himself.
Word count: 2, 963
Notes: This is for ancarett. She responded to my fic meme with "Helo, regret." One of the lines in this fic is stolen from a song. If you can pick it out, I shall be very impressed! Also, who do you think is the overseer? Any and all feedback is welcome. Please note this is unbetaed.
Helo squints to make out her figure, huddled in the back corner of one of the Resistance's better rooms. He eyes two men hunched over a table, talking in lowered voices accompanied by not so subtle gestures in her direction. They're her surveillance, her shadows, for the duration of her stay with the Resistance. He can see the gutless fear in the pit of their stomachs; they wouldn't breathe near her.
Helo observes Sharon's head dip, a surprisingly steady hand guiding food – brown sludge, in truth – to her mouth. His hand tightens on his own bowl, only half-eaten. He finds he can't stomach the rest.
The men's heads turn as he approaches Sharon, slides down the wall and peers into her bowl. He can tell they've given her the scrapings off the bottom of the pot, the largely burnt remains of an already unpalatable meal.
She meets his gaze, and he wonders whether the liquid pooling in her eyes is his imagination. He chews on his lip when the hand holding her bowl trembles.
Her voice is weak when she says, "Helo, what are you doing here?"
Out of the corner of his eye, he can see the men at the table tense but not turn.
"I came to check on you."
He feels he should call her something, anything, label her in his mind, and then practice saying it over and over again until there's no hesitation and it sounds unforced and normal.
"I'm… doing okay, you know." She scoops the last of the sludge into her mouth. She's not so convincing.
He grasps her hand – the contact doesn't burn – and gives her his share.
"This is the better stuff."
She shakes her head, pushing the bowl away and back into his hands. "This is yours. I can't take it." She slides her fingernail down the side of the bowl and he watches the movement as though he expected it to hurt his ears. She lowers her voice to a whisper. "I'm a Cylon. Their intention is to feed me the worst crap on Caprica."
Helo's eyes narrow. "I can tell you're hungry, now take it." He places the bowl in her lap. "If you're not going to eat it for yourself, eat it for our child."
Sharon tilts her head, staring into his eyes, and Helo swears he's transparent, that she can see right through him. It's an unusual action he's hardly ever seen. He fights back the voice in his head telling him it's Cylon.
"Okay," she says slowly. Taking her spoon, she swirls the sludge around his bowl. She brings the bowl up to her mouth and it smothers the sound of her voice. "Helo, I've been dying for something spicy all day."
A wistful smile tugs on the corners of Helo's lips. "It's a craving. You're… having a craving."
Sharon gulps down three mouthfuls of sludge. She doesn't wince at the taste as he did. She frowns and returns to stirring. "In the end, even this tastes wonderful." She pauses, analyses. "I didn't expect them to feed me. Whose responsibility is it to feed the resident toaster?" He can detect the underlying disdain in her tone.
Helo avoids eye contact, stares at the opposite wall discoloured by areas of brown where people have leant against the paint and left their smudged outline. He's never seen this building before so he can't say what it was like before the worlds ended.
Sharon quickly devours his food in silence. He watches her push his bowl away until it bumps into her own. She leaves her spoon in his bowl.
Still not looking at her, he asks anxiously, "Have you… had enough? I could go and see..." He indicates to the doorway. "Starbuck's insistent about them treating us properly… as soldiers. Well, you're more of a prisoner of war and I'm not sure if the Articles of Colonisation cover Cy—"
Sharon cuts him off. "The Others are cornering the Resistance, Helo. They have three basestars in orbit, each capable of carrying thousands of centurions." She frowns and her tone dips - and he can tell she's serious now. "So I don't think it matters if I'm still hungry. Humanity is fallen into hell and everyone still on the Colonies is facing death." She turns and looks into his eyes. "We need to get off Caprica, now."
He doesn't say anything but wets his lips, half-nervously, half because he feels like he's choking on his own bile.
She sighs and says, "I make you incredibly nervous, don't I? I suppose I should be grateful that we've finished anger and perhaps bypassed guilt." He watches her knead her hands together in her lap. "Have we bypassed guilt, Helo?"
"I don't know." He leans his head back against the wall, elbows on his knees. "I feel like I don't know anything. Starbuck is right – your entire existence in a lie."
"I'm not okay with that."
He thinks he'll never get this right, that he'll never be the person life wants him to be. He closes his eyes – there's safety in the darkness beneath his lids – and asks uncertainly, "How human are Cylons? How human are you, Sharon?"
"That's been worrying you?"
"Yes."
"Do you need the clinical definition?"
He shrugs, not for her benefit. "You breathe, bleed, laugh, cry. You're a walking contradiction. I think a part of my mind thinks you're a monstrosity."
"And the other part?" she prompts.
"Thinks you're too human to be Cylon." He sighs and clenches and unclenches his hands. "I never asked for the Cylons to look like you."
He can hear her breathe when she answers, eyes unfocused as though she's looking past him. "I'm immortal, Helo." He half-thinks she's suppressing the bitter urge to laugh when she adds, "I'm never going to die. I'm never going to stop being me. Everyday brings me one step closer to infinity."
Her hands skim across her abdomen. "Physically, we're stronger." Eyes flick to the men at the table, now conspicuously silent. "I could break their necks before you'd have the chance to react. It wouldn't take much at all - if there were a purpose." She lowers her voice and shifts closer. "I think they used to be bus drivers on the metro 66 lines. They're so lost."
Her eyes drift to the ceiling and Helo watches her bite her lip, just softly, not enough to draw blood he's already seen. "But there's no purpose in killing anyone now. I don't know if there was any purpose before, but Six always believed that there should be – because parents need to die for the children to take their places."
"Six is the blonde?"
She blinks and focuses on him, considering. "Six is seduction, Helo."
(The kiss in the rain)
He almost asks her what she means because it seems so obvious to her, but there's another question hammering in his chest, exploding inside his lungs, begging to be free.
"Have you killed, Sharon?"
He wonders why he needs to hear truth that hurts.
She shifts again and closes her eyes momentarily. "On the day after the end, one of the overseer models assigned a contingent of centurions to the streets of Delphi. I was assigned to him. I watched the centurions eliminate the survivors that hadn't managed to escape to the hills. Before that, I hadn't seen many humans. I was born on Homeworld, a special version of my model, already intended for this – for us." He's drawn to the sincerity, the depth, of her apparent emotion. "We found an elderly man leaning against the Grand Oval building, already dying as they all were. The overseer drew the centurions away, his hand raised in trust and peace and the man never whimpered." She frowns now (her sorry eyes). "He must have thought the centurions were a delusion. The centurions were bred for us, Helo. It's their purpose to protect and serve us. They never moved from their place behind the overseer, silent and towering." She doesn't say anything for a long moment and Helo never insists.
"The overseer turned and I could see it in his eyes, Helo. And there was a gun digging into my back, hooked on the band of my pants. It was just hanging there and I thought… it might fall, could fall. And what if I'd ordered the centurions to move and raise their guns? What if the hole in his heart had mattered as much the hole in his head?"
She takes a shuddering breath and they're both disturbed. "I think the centurions took the gun. I left with my escort and never saw that man again. Maybe he's not outside the Grand Oval anymore. Maybe we can all forgive ourselves for things we've done."
There's a beat where they both say nothing.
"Maybe they'll come a time when nothing like that matters… and then we'll never remember being anything less than cruel," he says, their eyes meeting, and he doesn't know who "we" is anyway.
Sharon's hands stray to her abdomen.
"If the Cylons were to raid this facility right now, what would happen to you?" To us, words burn his mouth.
Sharon's eyes seem to trace his face and then she looks down at his hand, and his fingers tingle. He knows what she is and yet he'd kiss her without thinking. He'd be with her before everything snapped.
"I'm a traitor."
Is she a traitor to her humanity even if she was never human in the first place?
He knows what they do to traitors, what he'd do to any other person.
"Cylons… don't kill Cylons. It's one of God's commandments."
"Kill? I thought you couldn't die."
"You shoot me now, Helo, and the system will implant my consciousness in another body. But I can be cut off from the system. I can truly die if they terminate my connection."
The desperation he feels inside hits him like a shockwave. There are voices in his head, all demanding.
Again, Sharon can see through him and says, "I'm too special to lose, Helo." Don't worry, don't act like this, be this person. "I am procreation."
Her words remind him of scripture - descriptions of the talents of the Gods, the Gods' ability to be the essence of their gifts.
"I don't know exactly what that means."
She tilts her head to the side, her eyes suddenly inquisitive and piercing all at once. "We all have a very special purpose. You were chosen above all others, above billions of men. Not many of us are born on Homeworld any longer. In the beginning, we were all birthed in the capital, within the safety of the hub. Only the special are given that consideration." She looks past him, examines the room as though she's conscious of the presence of everyone in the facility.
"Helo, Six is within the mind of another. She was born on Homeworld and her purpose is as clear as mine. She feels love just as I do. She could be more dangerous to us than the minds of anyone. I need you to realise that we're everywhere and that there are sides of the war."
She cups his cheek with her hand, brings her face closer to his. "Please listen to me, Helo. I --" She stops herself. "This will all mean something later."
Helo breathes and asks quietly, calmly, "How long have you been planning this?" He knows his eyes are wide, alarmed.
"It's like waking up and knowing what's been asked of you. Years of planning in one second."
"We never stood a chance," he realises.
"No, but we do." Her hand is warm and real against his face.
"It's the purpose of my model to pave the way for the next generation. The Sharon on the Galactica has the ability to conceive. She – I – have a memory of our… human "father" programmed by the Others, a precaution to avoid conception to a weaker male." Sharon removes her hand from his face. "I know she's told the best stories to avoid sex."
Helo can feel heat on his lips when he breathes. "I can remember."
She looks away. "She unconsciously chose an incompatible partner in Galen Tyrol."
Helo moves and draws her eyes back to him. "Why is he incompatible?"
"He has a very low sperm count. Cylon reproductive systems are an improvement on the human counterpart, but it wasn't enough."
Helo brushes a hand through his hair, his sigh audible. "Frak, all those times I offered before Tyrol. She must have known… what I wanted."
Sharon addresses him almost cynically. "You mean, why didn't she frak you?"
His eyes narrow and he wonders whether if that's jealousy in her voice.
"She never knew. She always, always thought she was human – with the exception of off-moments, times of pain and pleasure. I have the memories of being exposed in front of Tyrol after sex." It's difficult for him - just a simple pilot - to describe the look in her eyes – melancholy and aching - when she says, "True nature for a moment."
Her eyes shine. "I prefer to think God meant you for me."
He misses the fact that she's not talking in plural. He misses the offence he should feel.
"Sharon," he says, "I don't know how the Gods could have ever planned this."
"If you don't believe in the all-knowing power, what faith do you have left in the universe?" He watches her lips move, thinks about the heat he knows is there. "Who's going to save us all?"
She asks questions he knows he can't answer. He wonders which side of her asks them, what other emotions she embodies. He wishes he knew.
He wishes he knew the worlds.
"Helo," she says, finding reality, already rising to her feet and prompting the two men to react also. "Sleep."
In the back of his mind, he can feel himself reaching for the discarded bowls. She waits, her eyes still piercing. He rises, walks past her and slams the bowls on the men's table. His eyes momentarily close when she enters his space and slides one of her hands into his, below the level of the table and out of the men's sight.
"You can take your breaks now," he says, more gruffly than intended.
They look at him and then back at Sharon, and it's clear to Helo that they think very little of him. He could almost be a Cylon collaborator, couldn't he?
"We weren't told about breaks." The man's eyes are a pale green and he looks off his head.
"Well, I'm telling you that you're taking a break. Take it." All military and fire.
Helo pulls Sharon closer to his side, out of the room, up the stairs and into their makeshift room requisitioned by Starbuck. He doesn't think of the men's eyes on him or his tight grasp of Sharon's hand. He knows he'll never hurt her, the Cylon.
Sharon eases past him, her fingers slipping through his. She's visibly exhausted now and he thinks she was putting up a front for the Resistance. Never show your weak side. He finds he can't remember a time when Sharon – whichever copy – appeared tired.
She sits down on the bed and looks at him, her expression foreign.
"It's the baby," she explains. "It's draining me, more so than I expected. I can conserve my strength until our situation improves."
He chews on his lip, moves to sit in front of her. "Just don't be so calm about this."
"Helo, here," she says gently, reaching out and taking his hand. She pushes her shirt up, exposing the skin of her abdomen. Helo frowns for a moment when she places his hand there and moves it downwards slowly and then he gets it - the slight curve of her stomach, the curve that wasn't there weeks ago. And he thinks maybe it's too soon for all of this, for her to show in any way. He wonders about the nature of the child.
"Baby is fine," Sharon says, smiling despite everything. "My pregnancy will accelerate faster than… you expected." Helo can sense that she intended say something else entirely.
His chest tightens and he has to ask, his hand still on her stomach tracing the delicate curve. "The child is part human?"
"A hybrid," she corrects. "An advanced human. Whereas Cylons have synthetic components, the child will have those abilities inborn. Helo, it's quite possible that our baby will never get sick. My immune system has advanced far beyond yours. The hybrid should incorporate the best of both of us – Cylon and human."
"How can you be so sure? What if he or she is born… wrong?"
Sharon's smile is infectious, her eyes alight. "Everything's going to be okay." He doesn't pull back when she brushes the side of his face. "This is too strong to fear."
Sharon's gaze falls to the hand still resting on her abdomen and she entwines their fingers together, pulling him with her as she lies down on the cot.
"Stay with us, Helo," she says softly. "We need you."
He strokes a hand down her side, feels the warmth of her body. She sighs and he can feel her muscles relax. He glances at the open door, chewing his lip and debating the possibility of being seen, but Sharon tugs at his hand again and he's lost against her, one hand resting on her abdomen and a leg tangled with hers.
He doesn't fight the desire bury his face in her neck. He's not a Cylon collaborator, he knows, because she and his child are his only faith.
Most of all, he doesn't regret being himself.
FIN