DISCLAIMER: The character's and the universe of the Battlestar Galactica do not belong to me.
NOTE: It's pre "Black Market", but set before "Epiphanies". I know it's confusing, but try to ignore me.
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I DIDN'T WANT TO BE BACK ALIVE by -yannik-
Chapter Six – MEMORIES
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Silence of the early hours, right before sunrise. A steady breath of someone laying right beside. Warmth of her body.
The only part of it that wasn't existent was this about the sunrise. There was no sunrise. There was no sun. There was cold space all around, but for the thin walls made of metal, plastic, some carbon components maybe. So thin. So fragile. It was so easy to break it, to suck the air into the vacuum, let it spread, particle by particle. Into nothingness.
And suffocate everyone inside that tiny can that was a starship.
So easy.
Lee lay still, beside a blonde woman. It was almost five in the morning and he couldn't stop to marvel at how long he had slept. They were frakking until midnight, and then he curled up behind her, smelling her hair. It smelled like some forgotten annihilated flowers. He fell asleep, and didn't wake up until four. The magic hour – he was calling it these days. There was no way he'd sleep past four a.m. It was also rare that he fell asleep before four a.m. so he could say this was a good night actually.
A weird night. Not the first, but it still made him wonder how he ended up in a hooker's bed. Not that it was against rules and regulations, but it was certainly against common ethics. To add the load, there was a five-year-old girl in the next room. And that was even weirder. When the initial shock of seeing a child in a hooker's apartment passed, when he no longer wanted to run from Siobhan's place as far as the other end of the Galaxy – it was Paya, who brought him back here. It was the thought of her, the willingness to pay her mother, because maybe it would make the girl's life a little less awful. An illusion of charity.
He was never good with kids. He never wanted to be in fact. He was never good even to his brother, when Zak was a kid. There was this constant punching, and pushing, and telling him to "go away" when he played his oh-so-grown-up games. Until the divorce. The divorce had changed everything. He missed Zak. He missed his little brother so painfully it was impossible to bear.
He couldn't think about Zak now.
So Paya… Kids… He never wanted to have kids. He always knew he was never going to have kids. Gianne wanted. She never pretended differently, she kept telling how she'd love to love this little creature with his eyes, and her smile. He always changed the subject then. She was good to him , and he didn't want to lose her. But one day, when he was in a bad mood, or maybe she was more persistent… or maybe she was actually pregnant – that thought hit him the next day, but then it was too late – one day he dismissed her with outstanding cruelty. And they never saw each other again.
So he didn't have kids. At least not ones he'd be aware of. And certainly no living ones now, after the end of the world.
"You're awake?" a soft voice asked. He turned to face Siobhan.
"I'm thinking."
"What about?"
"A girl."
Siobhan fell silent, looked down at her palm, resting upon his chest.
"Is she pretty?" she asked calmly. Lee waited a moment with response. Here he was, in bed with a woman, and he was thinking about another. But this woman wasn't supposed to hurt over that. She was a hooker. He didn't have to lie.
"Yeah" he answered. "Yes, she was. Blonde. Had green eyes." So much like Kara.
"Was it…" Siobhan looked up at his face "before the end of the world?"
"No. Some time earlier." He was to tired to count months. Or years maybe – he did not remember, past was a blur. "It was probably the only time in my life that I was quite close to having a kid of my own."
Siobhan smiled knowingly, and cast a glance behind her, at the curtain separating her daughter's room.
"And Paya reminded you of her?"
"I guess."
They were silent for a little while, Siobhan caressing his chest with delicate strokes.
"You're still in love with her, aren't you?"
Lee didn't answer. No, he wasn't in love with Gianne, he didn't even miss her really. In fact he didn't even think about her for months. After they parted that day, and she never called, he never called; he spared maybe two thoughts on her. Truth be told, he wasn't even in love with her when they were together. He was with her because she reminded him – physically – of Kara.
"You miss her, that's obvious" Siobhan misunderstood his silence. "We all left someone behind in the Colonies. When we started that journey, that was supposed to last three weeks, or three days. We all said goodbye to someone, and left them behind. But this journey doesn't last three weeks, it lasts… a lifetime. And we miss those who stayed."
Lee gazed at her. There was something weird about Siobhan. A philosophical hooker. But it was appealing in a way too. She must have suffered so much, since the cataclysm, for a brief moment Lee wondered what she was doing earlier. He was pretty sure she was not selling her sexuality.
But he wasn't curious enough to ask. Instead he pulled the strand of hair off of her cheek, and pulled her to a kiss. And they started making love. Again. Slow, relaxing love, drained of passion.
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t.b.c.
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