Once he had Rene and Starbuck settled on the sofa for the night, and he was satisfied that they were resting well, he'd been escorted by the cranky old man down a long dark hallway to the hangar. It was something out of a holovid, the beautiful machines in near mint condition on display. His knees buckled at the sight of it and he couldn't help but to reach out and touch the one closest to him. She was so shiny, as if she'd never seen a day of rain in her life. There were enough for all of them to get in the air and still leave a few of the older models behind. Even being confronted by Avery who was still steamed about Jake's low blow and anxious to get off Caprica couldn't dampen his sense of euphoria at finally reaching their objective and not having to rely on the cylons for a ride home.
"You got them, so now we can go, just like you promised when we caught you looting," Avery sneered at him.
"Yeah about that," Jake drawled sounding like Crius. He didn't fill in the details that Rene needed time to get her mind back together. He didn't even look at Avery. The man wasn't his concern anymore.
"We're ready to go." Avery took a step towards him as he reached out to force Jake to face him, this time ready for the fight. Jake was surprised when the geezer Peryton stepped in Avery's way.
"It can wait a day. They promised me some work first, and your kind kept saying this was all the Lord's will, so the lord of this place, that would be me by the way, is saying you can wait a day and put in some work to pay off the meals I've given you."
Avery looked ready to say something nasty, but Boomer cut him off. "We promised and we keep our word, warrior's honor. Now that the sun is up, we can get to it, right Avery?"
Jake tried not to grin as Boomer led the man away, turning back to gaze at the beauty before him. His feet moved on their own towards the prototypes, sleek machines with clean lines painted in the matte black that deflected most scanners. He was reaching out his hand to touch her, when the old man grumbled at him, "Don't muss her. The oils on your hands messes with the finish."
"I know that," he said defensively, but his fingers still longed to feel her. "Where did you get these? Who the hades are you?" He hadn't meant it to sound so insolent, it's just he had at least known the names of all the wealthy movers and shakers in Caprica City. None of them were some old guy living in the hills. It took a lot of cubits to own this kind of collection, and that kind of wealth drew attention. These were flashy and if they had been his, he'd be showing them off, not tucking them away in the side of a mountain.
"Well right now, kid, I seem to be your saviour, so my word is law, got that? So, no touchy!"
"Yeah, well this kid is going to be flying one of these, so I'm going to end up touching it anyway."
"No, you aren't. I have enough fuel for one, maybe, and I hear that the gal is the one who can get you where you need to go."
The words went through him like an arc from a short in the power supply. "What?"
"What is it with kids these days, are you all deaf? I said I only have enough fuel for one launch and that's a maybe at best. My fuel tanks burned. I was going to have them buried, but the young guy I hired wanted to take time off to celebrate the armistice and didn't show up to do the job. I need help siphoning what is left in these gals and I just hope it's enough for one."
Jake wanted to lay his head on the viper as the exhaustion of the last few cycles steamrolled him. "Sagan's a sadistic mother fracker," he muttered under his breath, but apparently the old man.
0 wasn't hard of hearing.
"Watch your mouth, punk!"
Jake spun away from the craft, wanting to lay into the geezer all the fear and frustration of the last few cycles, but as he looked at the grumpy old man he caught himself. It would have come out as a childish whine, the constant cry of his childhood that life wasn't fair. His words once uttered were often followed by someone smacking him, and he balled up his fists as he choked down the dissatisfaction, nearly gagging on it.
The old man's grumpy face melted. "You aren't kidding. You really do think if you can get in the air that you can get away from this star system without the cylons taking you down?"
Jake nodded, trying to reign in his own desire to break something. "Yeah." The word was thick with the tears he swallowed.
His body tensed as the old man reached out to touch him. No one touched him and he took a step forward to throw the man off causing Peryton to freeze, before he met Jake's challenge, making both their moves appear to be purposeful and uniting. "She can really make wormholes? She can navigate in them?"
"Yeah, we can."
"You can? I was told she is the one. You know how it's done?"
"I have been through them with her a hundred times, maybe more. I know how she does it, in theory," he added the tidbit of truth.
"In theory." The geezer scanned him up and down. "Not many understand that theory. So, who the hades are you?"
Jake grinned evilly. "I'm the punk keeping everyone alive while this planet tries to kill them, that's who I am."
Peryton didn't miss a beat. "And who is she? You tended to her first so I'm guessing she's a bit more important than that wisp of a gal appears to be."
"She can get us out of here," Jake answered, but the old man mirrored his evil grin.
"Oh, that's it is it? She's your ride, that's all you're worried about? Don't lie to an old man. We know things. You don't care about getting back. You care about her getting back."
Jake stared him down, but the geezer stared right back. "Then you know so I don't need to tell you." Jake felt himself actually relaxing in the old man's glare because they seemed to both have something in common, but he couldn't put it into words. The geezer comprehended the unexpected harmony, even nodded communicating the familiarity before he spoke.
"You're going to understand when I tell those warriors with you that I'm not coming to your fleet. You know why I have to stay. A vow is a vow." The old man broke his gaze, shifting to survey the hangar that Jake abruptly realized was full of Avery's men and their children. "I didn't bring you here to talk theory and astrophysics. The kids are sick and you say you can keep them alive, so best you get to it."
"Yes, sir, my saviour," Jake answered sarcastically, pleased with the old man's chuckle at his sarcasm.
"Tell me what you need, pugnacious punk. I've got some medical supplies out over here."
He was led to a work table where the supplies were spread out, his own makeshift life center, and while there weren't vast quantities of medications, there was a wide assortment. Peryton didn't stay, but wandered off to supervise Avery leaving Jake to the task. Boomer had already treated most of the injured and ill to the best of his ability. Jake tended to the kids they had brought with them, finding that they were surprisingly healthy despite spending more than a few sectars in the care of the cylons. They were thin and oddly quiet, especially the youngest girl who clung to her father and wouldn't even let Jake have a look at her. He had to settle for running the biomonitor over her and having to trust the device as her father wasn't keen on forcing her to let go. Jake checked on Zion last, noting that the boy was still looking lost and frightened. Boomer informed him that Zion's father had died back at the shopping mall. He wasn't sure if he was going to share that information with Starbuck as he knew the man would take responsibility for the boy, adding more to their ever-expanding family.
When Jake was done with the five kids they had brought with him, Boomer took him around to check on some of the other children. Peryton had opened up boxes of his supplies, and there seemed to be plenty of food and blankets. The geezer was still gruff, but Jake kind of liked the old guy. For some reason he trusted the man's cranky attitude more than if he'd been gracious and welcoming. Avery and his men were still annoying and all of them were an intrusion. Apollo had definitely brought trouble to the old man's doorstep.
Despite the fact that most of the children were malnourished and many were showing signs of being ill with minor skin excoriations or viruses, none were in immediate danger. He thought with some rest, food, and medications almost all would survive. If they didn't make it back to the Galactica soon, he'd have to do some research to see what he could do for the ones that were sicker than the rest, but he thought he could do most of what he needed to do with what he had on hand.
He and Boomer finished up and headed back from the hangar to Peryton's dwelling. Apollo was still fast sleep in a chair, the only change was that there was a blaster in his lap. Boomer got Jake a mug of soup and made him strip off his wet clothes and wash the soot from his face. Jake thought about taking a turbo wash, but he was too tired to manage it and just put on the coveralls. He settled himself against the sofa, so if he dozed off and Rene woke, he'd awaken as well. He worried that she might lose the small meal she had eaten, and got up from the floor to track down a bowl or a bucket just in case. Rummaging through the kitchen, he found what he needed and brought it back with him.
He settled back down, and watched as Boomer tried to get Apollo out of his wet jacket. The Colonel only woke for a short time, long enough to shed the jacket and drink some of the soup before he slumped back in his chair, the blaster still in his lap. Despite his exhaustion, the Colonel still considered himself on watch.
Fatigue pulled at Jake's body, but his mind wouldn't shut down. His surroundings weren't helping any. It just seemed so surreal to find himself in a mountain dwelling, in front of a warm fire, like it was some vacation spot. The tunnels and ruined landscape of Caprica felt more real than this place. It didn't help either finding out that there might not be enough fuel to get back to the fleet and that Rene might not be able to work her magic and get them back to the Galactica. This might become their permanent home and the disturbing thought was keeping him awake.
He tried to kid himself that was it, the worry they were stuck here, but that wasn't what was really bothering him. It was that he'd almost lost Rene again. There had been too many close calls on this rescue mission of hers, first when she dove in after Boomer, then at the mall, and one of the longest nights of his life, when she tried to stop breathing on him. He seemed to be the only one who understood just how serious this mutated bacterium could be. Then on top of all that, to have the Cylons take her captive and the colonials and the colonists of Caprica just walking away. It had been too much. He'd had to fight to make the Colonials listen.
Sometimes he really missed Dilmun. While the fleet could be fun sometimes, in the fleet he was a nobody. On Dilmun at least, he was someone and there he knew where he fit in and where he didn't. He was listened to. He counted. Yeah, sometimes it sucked being underneath Dante's lackey, sometimes literally, not that any of them had ever asked if he was into guys, which he wasn't, not that that was the point. It was all about the fight and the power and in some bizarre way he missed that too. Dante's followers knew he was force to be reckoned with, that he had some power worth taking. But on the Galactica and even here on Caprica, he had to shout and still they didn't listen.
Okay, not totally accurate. Starbuck listened, but most of the time only when it involved Rene. At least in that realm he understood that Jake had some power. But if they lost Rene, where would he fit in? Starbuck had taken over his role in so many areas of their lives, even becoming a father of sorts to his kids. Without Rene, would Starbuck stay and take it all over, or would he go, and where would Jake be?
He'd be nowhere. Without Rene, there was no point in staying.
He and Rene hadn't talked about it lately, but for him, the pact still stood. If Rene died, he would too. Maybe if Ari had lived and made it to the fleet, then Jake would have found a way to keep going without her, but that didn't happen. Rene and the kids were all he had left, and if they were stuck here on Caprica, they were without the kids and he'd eventually lose Rene to the bug that wouldn't let go. It was Rene that had helped him to find a reason for living way back when, a long time ago on Caprica.
He shuddered, the chill of their long-wet hike working its way past his adrenaline, and the memories flooding in past his walls. The first time he laid eyes on her was when he was tossed into the orphanage. He'd been one pissed off kid at the time, to be placed in an orphanage when he had parents, one so bad that he wished they were dead. It had complicated his status. He couldn't be placed in a home like the other kids, the paperwork and court system slowed down the process. While other kids came and went, he stayed. Only one other kid in the place seemed to be around just like him. That kid had been Rene. She came and went a few times, but she always was back in a day or two. They became friends, and when they were bored, they killed time together and as they got older, the ways they killed time became more intimate. Could he call it love? He had never quite understood what that meant. People talked of butterflies and flutters of their heart and all that felgercarb. He'd never felt that with anyone, and maybe because with Rene, it was more than that.
When he plummeted off the edge, she was always there to pull him back. Far too many times she'd helped him puke up whatever he had taken to end it all. When he needed to come down to reality, she'd be the one to help him kick it out of his system and get him through the craving. She was the one who took the weapons from his hands when he wanted to turn them on himself. Even now with Starbuck taking over her life, she was still there for him. After the fight at the Galactica gym, he'd wanted to just end it all; he was tired of just being trash and a sewer rat. While some things had changed with their coming to the fleet, their status had not with many of the warriors. His life was so much more regulated than with Dante. The walls were closing in and the fists laid upon him without a single Galactican warrior coming to his defense seemed to solidify that he did not belong in the fleet. When he'd fought his way out of the gym and made it back to the new copper squadron barracks, he'd wanted to just end this damn farce. He'd gotten his kids and most of the family to safety and with Starbuck around, they didn't need him anymore.
Rene had found him at the moment in the barrack's turbowash as he'd unholstered his weapon and brought it to his temple. He'd closed his eyes, and her soft voice had stilled his finger just before he gave it the small twitch to end it all. "Jake, I need you. We had a deal. We don't hurt ourselves. Let me do it."
She had taken the blaster from his hands, setting it on the counter before she had wrapped her arms around him. All he could think was, "how did she know?" But she always knew with him. She wasn't the flutter in his heart, she was the steady strong beat. She wasn't the butterflies in his stomach, she was the nourishment that kept him going. He'd thought that with Starbuck in the picture they never would connect again in the ways they had before, but she proved that point wrong. Had proved it wrong a few times since. He knew if Starbuck found out, Rene might be his again. That is how much Rene trusted him and he would never break that trust again, especially when he'd found out how close she was to the edge. She needed help walking back from that cliff, and he hadn't been enough. She needed Starbuck for that journey and Jake was grateful the man was there for them.
He knew that Starbuck would be the one joining Rene in that viper waiting in the hangar. It had two seats, being a trainer of sorts. While someone might argue it should be Boomer or one of the children that were more ill than the rest, Jake knew it had to be Starbuck. Apollo might be more able to convince Adama to send the shuttle and the squadron back for them, but there was one hard fact that no one had noticed yet but him. Rene didn't have the device anymore. They'd have to make another one and it had been a long time since they had done that. While the hangar looked like it might have the right components, between trying to remember how to construct the device and potentially Rene's spotty recollections, the odds of getting lost somewhere out in the universe were high. It had taken sectons for most of his friends to get their memories back after the cylons toyed with their minds after the destruction. Some took longer than others, Nik being one of them. He still wasn't sure what Nik remembered from before the destruction. He wasn't even close to the same guy he had partied with in secondary school.
With the utterance of Kenan's name, he thought Rene at least remembered back to Dilmun, but Kenan had been a while ago. A lot had happened in between and if her memories were jumbled, would she be able to find her way back to the fleet? Would she take them somewhere else? If she was going to be lost in space somewhere, it should be with him. They had looked out for each other for over ten yahrens, had kids together and had saved each other more than a few times. Damn it, they had history.
And even if she could manage to find the coordinates they could give her, he knew the Galactica did not stop for a random warrior or two left behind. The Commander had most likely changed coordinates, no scratch that, with their disappearance, it was a sure thing the Galactica was not where they left her. Even if Rene's mind was completely clear tomorrow and she could take them right back to the same spot they left, the Galactica may be long gone and they wouldn't have enough fuel to jump back to Caprica.
Then there was the fact that jabbed at him hard. Starbuck had been right. She didn't seal with him, not that he had asked lately. He should have asked when she told him about the Galactica, but he thought he had time. He had thought that after Kenan's death and with the quota needing to be met, he and Rene would do what many had assumed they would eventually. They had decided it would be him that helped with making a child, and Dante hadn't objected, so he thought as long as the quota was met, he could always be the one to meet it. They didn't need a sealing for that, nor did they have the cubits to pay Dante for it. They didn't need it official.
But then he'd fracked it up, and there was no way to change what he had done. He'd tried to fix it, to make it right. She said she forgave him, but he didn't think she understood why he did what he did, not really. He'd broken something and he hadn't realized at the time just how stupid he had been. Yeah, he and Rene still relied on each other. What they had was more than husband and wife. They kept each other's deepest secrets. But ever since he fracked it up, now she knew just how weak he was. She had been clear that she intended to take care of the whole family and all the kids. She needed someone stronger.
Starbuck was stronger and he'd be the one to insist on going with her, and Jake was too weak to say no. If they didn't make it back or something went wrong, Jake would be living out his days here on Caprica alone. With Avery. That thought screaming in his head kept him awake. He had to be with her, even if he could never really be with her. He could handle losing her to Starbuck, as long as he could still have some part of her. It would be the not knowing if they made it or not, if she was alive or dead that would kill him. Despite it all, the Galactica and Starbuck, and all of it, the pact still stood. If she died, he wasn't going to live either. He didn't care if she would honor her side of the deal. That wasn't the point.
It was that point that jabbed at him as he tried to close his eyes and let his body relax. Would it be better if they all were stranded here? Maybe, definitely better than if she disappeared into the unknown without him.
A lot had changed for Jake in the last twenty-four centars. He looked back over to the Colonel realizing just how much the man had done for them in the last forty-eight centars. He thought maybe he'd found a new ally in Colonel Apollo and, truth be told, he actually found that thought a bit distressing. If they made it back to the Galactica, it would make it harder to exit the military and might jeopardize his standing with the other Zakar warriors, not his family, but the others. Those from the Zakar and the Shiva still made it pretty clear that the Sewer Rats were trash and might feel the need to remind them of their status if they thought the Rats were rising in the ranks. If they got back, it could become a complication.
The Zakar and Shiva warriors had secrets to hide. Jake and Rene had witnessed first-hand the atrocities. He couldn't forget the hope that came with the discovery of each new military vessel, the chance that its Commander might be wise enough and brave enough to contradict Dante, to put an end to his reign as leader. He thought the worst had been the Shiva. The Commander, some man named Taren, had stood up against Dante, ready to slug it out battle cruiser to battle cruiser, weapons fired up for the fight. Then the Commander of the Shiva seemed to realize how many lives could be lost, and agreed to Dante's terms. He had capitulated and agreed to hand over command to Dante. His command staff accompanied him to the landing bay to surrender to the Zakar's crew. Dante had insisted on meeting them first, and rather than shaking the Shiva's Commander's hand and accepting his surrender, Dante had shot him between the eyes. It wasn't that bloody scene that haunted Jake's dreams, but Gage's frantic face as he tried to pull back the Colonel of the Shiva, a man whose name Jake had pushed out of his mind. The Colonel had rushed Dante, firing. He'd hit their Commander in the arm, and it hadn't slowed Dante down as he shot the man multiple times, the Colonel's blood splattering all over Gage. What haunted Jake's dreams was Gage, dropping to his knees covered in gore, hands up in surrender, his face numb with shock.
His face was all their faces for the rest of their journey to Dilmun. Once on Dilmun, nothing shocked them anymore, not even when Dante was invited to dinner on the Destroyer and slew the whole command staff right after dessert, having given enough time for those loyal to him to take over control of the vessel.
It was that very scene he had expected when they dined on the Galactica, but her command staff had been too large, too many left on duty and not joining them for dinner. Plus, the Galactica had been too far from Dilmun to bring assistance unnoticed. Jake was also now aware that it wasn't just that Rene had sprung the trap early. Those on the Galactica were stronger than the other commanders and their staff. They had intimidated Dante, and now they pressured the Dilmun warriors into more acceptable decorum.
It hadn't mattered before the fleet came what information the Gutter Snipes held, no one cared. Dante didn't hide his actions because he and his command staff answered only to him. But everything had changed. The Galactica still believed in all the laws composed in the colonies. The values had not been rewritten and there were actually consequences for their actions. While Adama had not sought out to punish anyone for the past yet, that same 'yet' hung above the heads of those closest to Dante and his deeds.
If they made it back to the fleet, their association with the new Commander of the Zakar and the fleet's Commander could up the ante on those most complicit with Dante. Sewer Rats with some power could be a menace they might decide needed to be eliminated. It could be best if they stayed here on Caprica, for their own safety. Apollo could protect them in a way, but his protection could also put them in harm's way.
Jake appraised Apollo with new eyes, and he had to admit he should do the same for Starbuck. The two couldn't suppress their righteous streak. The only reason why the indignation hadn't turned to full out fury with Starbuck was that the Rats kept him distracted and occupied. Let loose, his virtuous vengeance could get them all killed.
And his thoughts came full circle. They would target Rene first. She had been closer to Dante, and without her, there was no point in Jake going on. The pact still stood. Here on Caprica, or there on the Galactica, their days were dangerous and maybe soon coming to an end.
He gave up on trying to sleep and headed down to the hangar to check out the viper that might be the answer to all his worries. Or just the beginning of an entirely new set.