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Entry tags:
ficlet: BSG, Patterned After, Leoben, PG
disclaimer: not mine.
characters: Leoben, Sam Anders, references Kara Thrace
rating: ...er, PG? Mostly some language, I guess.
set: post-Islanded in a Stream of...
length: barely 700 words
notes: Something I would have liked to've seen in the show.
Patterned After
by ALC Punk!
He picks a time when the others are gone, when an Eight comes stomping out, muttering about impossibilities and the paths the Cylons have already taken, he slips in, closing the hatch quietly.
There is no one in the small room, just up the corridor from the infirmary. No one to see the Cylon who once believed so violently in God that he did things he couldn't quite understand anymore.
He moves to look down at the Cylon, the member of the Final Five who should be dead, yet isn't. A man he'd once understood.
There are things he could tell him, about the patterns, about the hybrids on other ships--but he could also laugh at his own presumption. As a hybrid, Sam has seen the join between life and death. He understands too much while Leoben knows too little.
He tells him anyway, words careful and quiet, watching and listening as the data stream dictates the movements of Anders' mind. Tells him about following Kara Thrace, her destiny to be the angel that led them to the promise land, his part in God's designs--
"I ran," Leoben finally says, crouched, almost kneeling at the side of the tank. This one isn't the same as the hybrid tank on the base ship; it's not sunk into the floor, and somewhere, he thinks that throws his perspectives off. He looks at the man in the tank (the Cylon), watching the data stream create patterns on Sam Anders' too-pale skin. "From her."
"Adrenaline response, pupils dilate, gathered on the wings of an angel, the end becomes--" the babble continued, a series of riddles long burned into Leoben's brain, divining their own wisdom from the patterns of blood and sinew in a way that he wants to still understand.
"When I saw--truly saw--" he stops, head glancing at the door leading out onto the deck. This is not his secret, it belongs to her, as she belongs to all of them. As much as it frightens him, sharing it with the rest of the small world that might never be large again isn't in him. Not yet, the time may never be right for them, but this is the one thing he can give her, even amongst the jumble of confusion.
Around them, the Galactica shifts, not turning as a planet does. Small lurches, the frame heaving and shifting, trying to settle back into its original shape, torn into pieces by the long journey and strife. Leoben wonders, in a way that he always has, how the hybrids reconcile their finite bodies with the infinite space of the ship enfolding them.
If they could rediscover resurrection technology, would Sam Anders remember what feeling the cosmos caress his skin was like? Were there even adequate words in the human-Cylon vocabulary to express such a concept?
"--end of line."
There was a pause, as though the hybrid who had once been Sam Anders were waiting for input. A sick feeling clutches at Leoben as, for an instant, he contemplates the horror before him. Sam Anders, vibrant and physical to the point of violence now resides in a pool of nothingness, body suspended, his mind gone, reduced to the patterns enforced by the data stream, babbling endlessly in a manner which will never be the same as his conversation had been.
Leoben has never known a hybrid prior to their losing sanity and becoming what they were meant to be. For a moment, he wonders if this was the path he should have seen for Sam, instead of Kara Thrace, her brilliance eclipsing his steady influence.
"To all things come a change, vital to survival. Stagnation, corruption, tumble life into a hollow. Ten pounds pressure loss, starboard side--"
Fascinated again despite himself, Leoben leans forward, fingers skimming the skin of Sam's shoulder. He is warm to the touch, almost human (Cylon) again. He presses harder, moving closer, trying to understand something unknowable, perhaps.
A hand closes over his wrist.
"The angel struggles towards understanding, the light, left to twist in a web of uncertainties and lies. Compensation brings stability."
The fingers slip off his wrist and Leoben finds himself moving, standing and heading towards the door. As though he's received an answer: marching orders not of his own making.
Kara Thrace is an angel, he saw that, once upon a time. The reality of her death doesn't lessen that. She will need someone to stand at her back, to watch her and keep her safe--once, he thought that was himself, that he would shape her for her destiny. Now, he doesn't know. And perhaps that's the most frightening thing of all.
"To everything comes an end..."
Leoben closes the hatch before Sam's words can entangle him again. He should return to the base ship. The rest of his brothers will need to learn of this, and perhaps, they can plan for the new reality sure to come upon them.
-f-
characters: Leoben, Sam Anders, references Kara Thrace
rating: ...er, PG? Mostly some language, I guess.
set: post-Islanded in a Stream of...
length: barely 700 words
notes: Something I would have liked to've seen in the show.
Patterned After
by ALC Punk!
He picks a time when the others are gone, when an Eight comes stomping out, muttering about impossibilities and the paths the Cylons have already taken, he slips in, closing the hatch quietly.
There is no one in the small room, just up the corridor from the infirmary. No one to see the Cylon who once believed so violently in God that he did things he couldn't quite understand anymore.
He moves to look down at the Cylon, the member of the Final Five who should be dead, yet isn't. A man he'd once understood.
There are things he could tell him, about the patterns, about the hybrids on other ships--but he could also laugh at his own presumption. As a hybrid, Sam has seen the join between life and death. He understands too much while Leoben knows too little.
He tells him anyway, words careful and quiet, watching and listening as the data stream dictates the movements of Anders' mind. Tells him about following Kara Thrace, her destiny to be the angel that led them to the promise land, his part in God's designs--
"I ran," Leoben finally says, crouched, almost kneeling at the side of the tank. This one isn't the same as the hybrid tank on the base ship; it's not sunk into the floor, and somewhere, he thinks that throws his perspectives off. He looks at the man in the tank (the Cylon), watching the data stream create patterns on Sam Anders' too-pale skin. "From her."
"Adrenaline response, pupils dilate, gathered on the wings of an angel, the end becomes--" the babble continued, a series of riddles long burned into Leoben's brain, divining their own wisdom from the patterns of blood and sinew in a way that he wants to still understand.
"When I saw--truly saw--" he stops, head glancing at the door leading out onto the deck. This is not his secret, it belongs to her, as she belongs to all of them. As much as it frightens him, sharing it with the rest of the small world that might never be large again isn't in him. Not yet, the time may never be right for them, but this is the one thing he can give her, even amongst the jumble of confusion.
Around them, the Galactica shifts, not turning as a planet does. Small lurches, the frame heaving and shifting, trying to settle back into its original shape, torn into pieces by the long journey and strife. Leoben wonders, in a way that he always has, how the hybrids reconcile their finite bodies with the infinite space of the ship enfolding them.
If they could rediscover resurrection technology, would Sam Anders remember what feeling the cosmos caress his skin was like? Were there even adequate words in the human-Cylon vocabulary to express such a concept?
"--end of line."
There was a pause, as though the hybrid who had once been Sam Anders were waiting for input. A sick feeling clutches at Leoben as, for an instant, he contemplates the horror before him. Sam Anders, vibrant and physical to the point of violence now resides in a pool of nothingness, body suspended, his mind gone, reduced to the patterns enforced by the data stream, babbling endlessly in a manner which will never be the same as his conversation had been.
Leoben has never known a hybrid prior to their losing sanity and becoming what they were meant to be. For a moment, he wonders if this was the path he should have seen for Sam, instead of Kara Thrace, her brilliance eclipsing his steady influence.
"To all things come a change, vital to survival. Stagnation, corruption, tumble life into a hollow. Ten pounds pressure loss, starboard side--"
Fascinated again despite himself, Leoben leans forward, fingers skimming the skin of Sam's shoulder. He is warm to the touch, almost human (Cylon) again. He presses harder, moving closer, trying to understand something unknowable, perhaps.
A hand closes over his wrist.
"The angel struggles towards understanding, the light, left to twist in a web of uncertainties and lies. Compensation brings stability."
The fingers slip off his wrist and Leoben finds himself moving, standing and heading towards the door. As though he's received an answer: marching orders not of his own making.
Kara Thrace is an angel, he saw that, once upon a time. The reality of her death doesn't lessen that. She will need someone to stand at her back, to watch her and keep her safe--once, he thought that was himself, that he would shape her for her destiny. Now, he doesn't know. And perhaps that's the most frightening thing of all.
"To everything comes an end..."
Leoben closes the hatch before Sam's words can entangle him again. He should return to the base ship. The rest of his brothers will need to learn of this, and perhaps, they can plan for the new reality sure to come upon them.
-f-
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