(Post "Daybreak". Sharon's thoughts on her new life on Earth.)
Sharon stands in the door of the cabin, watching the horizon. It's dark with clouds. Lightning flashes light up the sky, much more than the remaining dull glow of the sun that has edged below the horizon. The smell of the oncoming storm is strong and she breathes it in.
The cool air blows across her body and she shivers, as much in delight as in reaction to the temperature drop. The rain is coming. A gust of wind slaps her face with the first droplets of wetness.
She should go inside. But she doesn't. She revels in the feel of the wind and the rain. Almost her whole life was spent on the Colony or on one Basestar or another. Her time on a planet had been limited to the weeks on Caprica when she was assigned to seduce Helo and the time she slipped onto New Caprica to meet with Sam Anders and obtain the launch keys for the Colonial ships. Neither had given her much of an opportunity to experience the wonders that came with living on a world.
Not that everything about living here was easy. Many people, human and Cylon alike had died. There were farmers and herdsmen among the human survivors but they were spread thin among the settlements. The integration of the natives had helped but the former spacefarers had learned that primitive life is not idyllic. Women died in childbirth and children succumbed to illnesses that once were easily treatable. Men had accidents and sometime encountered the dangerous portions of the planet's animal life with fatal results.
Still, they had persevered. While they still eschewed the star-faring technology that had brought them here, groups and individuals had created forges and found deposits of minerals that allowed for the creation of tools. Investigation into plants the natives used for medicines had proved very promising, even with the primitive facilities available to research them. Their particular settlement had been built beside a stream that flowed year around. That stream drove a water wheel that was available for grinding grain and helping to make and sharpen tools and a number of other tasks.
It was using the wheel to power a saw mill that had allowed them to trim the trees that had become the solid and sturdy house the doorway of which she stood in. When the rumbling and the light show came closer she could duck back inside, close the door and be safe. The log house was warm with a fireplace to heat it and strong shutters and doors. There was furniture and a loom to make cloth. Their garden lay behind the house along with the communal fields of grain and the pastures for the domesticated animals. This was what she preferred.
Some had drawn apart. Poor Galen, she thinks. Some of the humans had been unable to live with the Cylons. Well, this world was big enough for that. No matter how they felt, succeeding generations would hopefully grow out of the hatred and distrust. Humans and Cylons continued to marry and produce children and both did with the natives integrated into their loosely connected society sprawling around the planet.
Some had thrown in with the natives, embracing their hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Always on the move, the nomadic ways had appealed to the most restless among them, Cylon and human both. Sharon didn't care for the idea. She understood the desire of so many to avoid the mistakes of the past and the turning away from technology but she had had enough on Caprica of sleeping outside in the rain and the cold and not having enough to eat. She feared those making that choice would soon find romance would be trumped by reality.
Some had even stayed with Romo Lampkin and established a city on a bluff overlooking a large river. Although they had foresworn cybernetics and spaceflight and mechanical servitors they did retain some features from the twelve Colonies. It would be interesting to see how all the different groups turned out. Not that the result would be determined in her lifetime of course.
How did it happen that the DNA of all three races were compatible? Sharon didn't have an answer except that it must be the will of God. Nothing else could explain it; explain how people from three different areas of the universe, separated by unimaginable distances could produce children together. She closed her eyes and said a prayer thanking God for that. She and Helo had been the first to prove it and Hera was the result. Hera and...
Sharon's mind is wrenched back to reality when a much larger gust of wind driven rain showers her. She laughed in delight and then sighed happily when a pair of strong and familiar arms encircled her.
"Going to stand here all night long?" Helo teased her. He cast an eye on the approaching dark clouds. "I think that storm is going to be here all too soon Sharon."
"I'm coming."
"Besides, Hera and Artemis are both awake and asking me why Mommy is standing in the doorway when it's raining. They also want to know if this means their brother is getting wet."
Sharon laughed softly and covered Helo's hands with her. Both pairs of hands rested comfortably on the swell of Sharon's tummy, her latest pregnancy showing its advanced state. "They seem so sure it's a boy."
"They do and I'm hoping for one myself. We have two wonderful daughters but I'd like a little balance in this house. I'm tired of being outnumbered three to one."
Sharon turned in his arms. Standing on her toes she kissed him. "I don't think you've ever been outnumbered."
"Are you frakking with me? Since the day I met you I've been outnumbered just by you." Helo kissed his wife back. Another, and much closer, rumble failed to drown out the pair of girls calling for their parents to knock it off and act their age. With a shared grin the older Agathons wrapped their arms around each other and firmly closed the door against the storm before they made their way back to their daughters and then their own bed.
"The wind and the rain and even the storm are nice," mused Sharon as she snuggled against her husband. "But this is the best thing on this whole planet."
(The End)