Title: Baltar's First Year
Author: vashsunglasses
Rating: T
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica (2003-Now)
Disclaimer: BSG belongs to RDM.
Summary: Baltar's first year as President. A character study.
He couldn't take it. He couldn't handle it. He never had a free moment to himself anymore. It was always, "Sign this bill," "Go to this meeting," "Make this speech." He couldn't remember the last time he used any software on his computer that wasn't a word processor. He couldn't remember the last time he wore anything other than a suit. And he couldn't remember the last time he had slept through the night without being haunted by the nightmares that followed Gina's suicide.
If that had been the extent of his problems he could have handled it. But then came the morning a few weeks after the inauguration when he had realized that not only had Cylon Number Six been conspicuously absent those past weeks, but she wasn't coming back. He leaned heavily on Zarek in those first few months. Zarek had been a gods send to him, helping him to maneuver through the perilous world of Colonial politics. And then came the betrayal. He should have seen it coming, after all the man in question was Tom Zarek, Master Terrorist. Baltar had barely come through that mess with his career intact and after that he was on his own. Sure he had Gaeta, but he was as new to all this as Baltar was.
It was only two days after the departure of Zarek when he realized the buffer zone he had been between him and the Quorum of Twelve. Every member of the Twelve wanted him to decide things in their favor and every one of them was willing to do whatever it took to make him see things their way. Soon he was dodging near constant intrigues and conspiracies while trying to do a job that he barely understood. He comforted himself in the idea that after all was said and done people would appreciate his efforts for them. That romantic ideal was destroyed when he was booed out at a public speech by a group of protestors lead by former Galactica soldiers Tyrol and Cally. Public support plummeted and soon everything that went wrong was blamed on his presidency. The Quorum members were only too glad to place all the blame squarely on his shoulders and it wasn't too long before Baltar found himself in a sea of blame with only Gaeta trying to keep him afloat.
It wasn't enough. Baltar was a man who at his most fundamental core needed to be liked by those around him. The constant struggle wore him down to nothing and for comfort and healing he turned to the two things that had always been there for him in the past: women and ambrosia. It became a vicious cycle in those last few months of his first year in office. The more he was sneered at, the more he drank. And the more he drank, the worse he governed. That only heightened the scorn, and when he fell into a woman's arms it felt like the only thing holding him together. Gaeta, his last stronghold, was beginning to lose all respect for him, his political career had fallen apart, and he thought it couldn't get any worse.
Then, the Cylons came.