Ghosts of the Past
by cliosmuse
Chapter 3
It had caught her eye as soon as she stepped onto the Cylon Basestar, just after its return from the devastated Cylon hub. She had followed D'Anna through the ship's labyrinthine halls in wonder; had basked in the admiration of the copies that remained when she was introduced by the Three. And then she'd seen the glistening pool and was held rapt.
The first time she put her hand in the water, she thought she was going to die.
It was what she once imagined (in that life she had thought of as hers) it would be like to be struck by lightning, or to drop a hair dryer into the water while bathing.
It was electrocution.
Except she didn't die. With a small gasp, she pulled her hand back; looked around furtively at Starbuck's Leoben and one of the Sixes, deep in discussion.
But they didn't look her way (distracted, no doubt, by D'Anna's threatened slaughter of the Colonial hostages), so she slipped her hand back into the shimmery liquid. Electricity shot through her.
It was addiction.
The things that she felt! The things that she saw!
The fear of the hybrid, intense, visceral: as if it were her own.
The guilt and jealousy the Eight had known as she admitted to Helo her crime, her surreptitious theft of Athena's memories. The hot flutter that burned in her belly each time she looked at this man, her sister's husband. (She felt her desire.)
The anguish of the Leoben as he and one brother had watched from the Sixes' Basestar their own ship destroyed in civil war, all other copies killed, and then eliminated definitively in the explosion of the Hub; but the hope that danced in the back of his mind, now, even as he spoke of other things with the Six, that perhaps their deaths made him more unique, more human, made him something she might love, that angel who possessed his soul. (She felt his longing.)
And, distantly: the Cavils. Reeling in confusion as the hybrid jumped away from the Hub (in flames, she saw, through the Cavils' eyes). Now, regrouping. (She felt his rage.)
Without moving a muscle, she pushed out against the water, hot energy flowing out of her and into the ship. And she felt, from some great distance, that the Cavil felt her, and responded.
She pulled her hand back; the connection broke. Once again, she glanced around herself, trying to ascertain whether she had been spotted.
She knew, felt certain, that when the others put put their hands in the water, they didn't sense it in this way. They felt networks and data streams. They didn't feel this wholeness, this godlike knowledge of all. But they wouldn't: they were merely imperfect copies.
Tory smiled, then. It was she who was perfect.
***
"Are you still having the dream?"
Laura Roslin started for a moment, then relaxed at her desk on Colonial One. It had been a day since the Fleet had left Earth; they'd jumped three times. (In an effort to evade the Cavils, Bill sad. But she knew that he just didn't want to stop. If a shark stops swimming, it dies.) "I'm sorry. I didn't hear you come in." Caprica stood before her, with her tall and easy grace. Her face was a mask of calm.
"You asked to see me. I assumed that you'd been seeing the Opera House again."
Laura took a deep breath. Took off her glasses; folded and unfolded them. Smoothed her hands over the ends of the hair of her wig. (Nervous gestures, all.) "I –" A pause. "Have you seen it again?"
Pity flashed briefly in the blond woman's eyes. (She had over the past weeks accustomed herself to the thought of death: but to know, to have to wait for it. Or perhaps, she thought, that's what I'm doing right now.) She answered in a single word. "Yes."
Laura swallowed. "What... what does it mean, do you think?" A beat. "And please, sit."
She seated herself across from the president (pushing from her mind how intimately, intimately familiar she was with this space); folded her hands in her lap. "I heard your address this morning on the wireless. It was very good. I think you've forestalled a panic."
"As much as I appreciate your saying so, you're changing the subject. I need to know what this dream means."
"I don't know what it means."
Disbelief; she couldn't hide it. The collective weight of it all was making her giddy, undisciplined. A burst of laughter escaped the president's lips. "Not a clue? Not the slightest idea? I find that hard to believe."
For a long moment, there was silence. Then: "Gaius was on the Raptor that went to Earth. Nothing's been officially made public, of course. But there's talk. Gossip. I'm certain he was on it."
Laura leaned back in her chair; steepled her hands. "Are you suggesting this dream may have something to do with Earth?"
When the Six didn't respond, the president stood; walked around her desk to stand before the other woman. Looking down at her, she leaned back into the desk, standing close enough to the seated Cylon that their knees just grazed. The straight hair of her wig fell long around her face. "Are you still in love with him?"
Caprica looked up from her lap, her eyes narrowed. "Just how much longer do you have to live?"
Laura sucked in a breath and glanced away just for a moment before returning her eyes to the Cylon's. She nodded. "All right. Hard questions. I understand that. Quid pro quo." A pause. "Three weeks. I have about three weeks." Silence, but Caprica's expression softened, her eyes shining with surprise (not at the fact of it, but that she'd said it at all). "Now your turn." The next words with spaced emphasis: "Do you still love him?"
A breath: "Yes."
"Would you lie to me about this just to go after him?"
Another breath: "No." Then, more firmly. "No. I believe there is something on Earth. Something we were brought here to find. That Gaius was in the dream just confirms that. Nothing more." She closed her eyes, her final words coming rapidly, insistently. "And I believe that calamity awaits both our people if we don't act now."
The president's hand came to her chin, her fingers moving over it softly, thoughtfully. Then she nodded, stood, and returned to her chair; lifted the phone. "Ship to ship call for Sharon Agathon. Tell her it's the president."
***
The first time Tory put her hand in the water, she had no memory of Earth.
She had learned much since then. She understood her history, now.
Now, when her hand disappeared beneath the surface of the silver bath, she allowed the energy to pour through her, and she spoke back to it. D'Anna was gone; her feet were now planted firmly in Earth's grey dust. She breathed in the day, and Tory could smell its crispness. In an office on Colonial One, one that she was quite familiar with, Caprica and the president conspired. An emptiness remained where Starbuck's Leoben had presided, sickening in its finality; all of his memories forever lost. Somewhere on the Basestar, the last Leoben, carrying none of the memories, mourned his fallen twin and cursed his foolish obsession. But, rising above it all: confusion, now, and dread.
And where confusion reigns, leaders rise. This was the most basic rule of history. And it was the single tenet that Tory Foster had carried with her through her several existences. She smiled. She would be that leader.
Closing her eyes, she pushed into the water with her mind, harder and farther than she thought possible. What was needed, she knew, was unity. She called out for Cavil.
***
As the pulse went out, Earth's last four children, Samuel Anders, Galen Tyrol, Saul Tigh, and Anastasia Dualla – the survivors of a lost world – let out a collective gasp.