Title: Not
Author: Canis
Rating: G (or K, depending on where this is uploaded)
Warnings: N/A
Spoilers: up to 2.10
Pairing: Cally/Jammer
Author's Note: Just something I did for fun.
Specialist Cally was angry. Very, very angry. Very, very, very angry. Very, very, very, very - well, the point was that she was downright pissed off.
That drunk son of a bitch.
She had been trying to lose the Lieutenant from Pegasus for about half an hour now. Stinger, if she recalled correctly. The one that had made lewd comments about Sharon. The one she had snapped at because of his comments about Sharon.
It wasn't that she felt some sort of remorse over what had happened to Boomer. To the cylon. Heck, she was the one who had shot the other one in the stomach.
She wasn't sorry.
No, she wasn't sorry at all.
But still...
Much as she didn't want to, Cally had to admit that both Boomers were responsible for helping the fleet immensely, one way or another. The first one - the one she herself had killed (Not murdered. It wasn't murder. She was a machine. It wasn't murder. It wasn't murder. No reason to have nightmares over it. It wasn't murder. Murder. Murder. Murderer.) – had blown up that basestar for all of them.
The second one - the one she so strangely had come to be protective of - she had saved them all from certain death at the hands (or rather the weapons) of hundreds of cylon raiders.
Sharon was a cylon. Sharon had saved them all. Sharon was loved by the Chief, and now was loved by Lieutenant Agathon.
Sharon was still a cylon.
Sharon had shot the Commander twice at point blank range without batting an eyelash.
Sharon was still a cylon.
And yet...
Even though all these things she said were true, it still didn't mean those jerks could just come in and act as though Boomer was their toy. Because she wasn't. She wasn't their toy.
She wasn't a toy, period.
She was more than that.
A hand reached and touched her shoulder. Without turning around, she kicked back with her foot, hard, and heard a surprised (not to mention extremely pained) yelp.
"Ow! Shit, Cally!" a voice, deep and familiar, reached her ears.
"Jammer? What are you doing here?" she asked. Surprise was etched on her face. Jammer looked up indignantly at her from his spot on the deck floor, nursing the spot on his shin where she had kicked him. Cally smothered a laugh as she helped Jammer to his feet.
"Sorry."
"I'm sure you are," Jammer groused, before taking a closer look at her.
"Hey, hey, you okay? What's wrong?"
"Nothing," she said hurriedly. "What are you doing out here, anyway? I saw that Pegasus deckhand flirting with you. Thought you'd have hit the hay by now."
Jammer rolled his eyes.
"Uh-huh. As if I would go with that dumb cooze. What gives? Why aren't you at the party? Come on, tell big bro every-."
He shut up then, because Cally was glaring at him. Jammer held up a hand in defense. A mean Cally was not a good Cally. Cally sighed.
"I'm running away from one of those frakkers from the Pegasus."
"Why? Who? What's he done to you?" Jammer asked, handing her a jar of Galactica's finest. Cally gratefully accepted, and together they sat down on the floor of the deck.
"It's more like what he wants to do to me," she explained.
"Oh."
They sat in silence like that for a while. It wasn't a bad kind of silence, but just one where they sat with each other in a sort of warm companionship.
Cally liked it.
Jammer was only a year and a half older than she was. He had been the son of one of the many car repairmen on Picon, and never really had enough money to make it past high school, but when he was nineteen one of the officers saw him single handedly fixing a car without any trouble and had offered him a spot on the Galactica as a deckhand. Jammer had eagerly accepted, of course. Another three months and he would have made enough money to enroll in a fairly good college by now. He certainly was bright enough.
They had all been like that, one way or another. Jammer, Seelix, ever Prosna and Tarn and Socinus. Almost all of the deckhands her age had been aboard the Galactica for the amount of money offered. They had never thought they would be the ones responsible for keeping pilots alive and thereby helping protect what was left of humanity in the midst of a raging war. Prosna never thought he would die from a nuclear warhead-caused fire. Socinus and Tarn never thought they would die at the hands of cylons on a planet they had never dreamed existed.
She never thought she would kill anyone in cold blood.
Kill.
Murder.
Murderer.
"I'm not a murderer," she blurted out.
"Huh?" Jammer blinked in surprise. His hand with the jar of Chief's "solvent" was halfway to his lips, but his head was turned towards her.
"I'm not..." she took a deep breath.
"I'm not a murderer," she said shakily. Dammit. The alcohol must be getting to her brain. Jammer gave her a weird look.
"'Course you're not. What gave you that idea?" he asked.
"I'm not a murderer."
"Yeah. I know. You just said so three seconds ago."
"I didn't kill anyone."
"..."
Jammer simply stared at her. He wasn't stupid, by far; he knew she was talking about.
"No," he finally said with a sigh. "You didn't."
He brought a hand up to her head and ruffled her hair in a brotherly way. Three months of stressful work and loss of mutual friends had brought them closer to one another, forging a semi-sibling type of relationship between them.
"I didn't kill anyone. I shot a frakking toaster. I didn't kill. I never hurt anyone. I'm not a murderer."
It was a chant, a mantra, a desperate attempt to brainwash the self of a horrible memory. A plea for validation. An effort to wash one's hand of blood.
Not a killer. Not a murderer. Didn't hurt anyone. Justified. Justified. I never ever hurt anyone. I didn't kill a person. I'm not a murderer. Not a murderer. A murderer.
Muderer.
"Stop it," Jammer growled, shaking her arm roughly. It wasn't harsh, but it was enough for her to snap out of it. She blinked, then pulled away. Jammer looked at her with more than little concern.
"You okay?"
"Yeah."
He looked far from convinced.
"Just the drink getting to my head," she said, and leaned her head against Jammer's shoulder. It wasn't unnatural. There was only a handful of them left. Friendship built up fast among the deckhands, soon turning into a strong camaraderie. Lending a shoulder was a small thing, considering the hellish reality they had to live through everyday. It was the nice thing about being enlisted rather than commissioned officers; they could afford a bit more comfort through physical gestures, from borrowing a shoulder for support or receiving a hug after a particularly bad day.
Jammer didn't seem to mind at all. He even shifted so that she could rest against him more comfortably, and used one hand to steady her shoulder and keep her from slipping. He was a companion. He was a friend. He was a brother.
"Hey shoooooooortyyyyyy!"
"Jeez! Does he never give up!" Cally hissed angrily as she began to pull back from Jammer. Damn that frakker to hell!
Jammer's face darkened when he heard the drunken slur of Pegasus's very own Lieutenant Stinger. He grabbed Cally's shoulder and pulled her towards him, keeping her locked in a hold that was far too tight to be merely friendly. They waited, silently, hoping that the idiot lieutenant would be too drunk to notice the two deckhands in brightly colored coveralls sitting right smack in the middle of the deck.
Miracles happen.
The footsteps died away. They held their breath needlessly, just in case Stinger would hear them and come back.
"Jammer, you can let go of me now," Cally said after another moment, her words muffled against his yellow coveralls. He looked down, then immediately pulled away, flushing pink as realization of what they must have looked like dawned upon him. He cleared his throat rather loudly and got up from his seat.
"I, uh, I've got to go check on that panel on the CAG's Viper," he stuttered nervously. Cally raised an eyebrow. If she remembered correctly it was Seelix's turn to check Apollo's Viper over tonight, and she was pretty sure she had done that hours ago.
"So, uh, I'll, uh, see you in the rack later," he mumbled, backing away. Cally raised her other eyebrow. Jammer looked awful pink. He reminded her of the cotton candy she bought two Colonial Days ago. She blinked.
"Okay..." she then leaned over to peck Jammer on the cheek and give him a quick hug.
"Thanks, Jam," she said, using her nickname for him. Jammer was now turning from pink to red. He stood there for a couple of seconds, staring at her, then made a bolt for the door, his previous excuse of having to check on the CAG's Viper forgotten.
Cally smiled as she watched her "big brother" flee. Jammer was a good guy. He claimed she wasn't a murderer. He backed her up. He was a companion. He was a friend. He was a brother.
And maybe he would be just a bit more.
Fini