Fic - BSG - Identity Crisis

[zorb]

Title: Identity Crisis
Author: zorb
Rating: PG-13, for excessive use of the word frak
Characters/Pairing: Starbuck, Helo, Boomer.  But mostly Starbuck.  Gen, though I suppose you can read into it what you will.
Spoilers: Through Season 1 - if I hit on a future plot point, it's entirely accidental as I am camped out in my spoiler-free bunker.
Disclaimer: I'll put your toys back where I found them, Ron, I promise! 
Summary: The immediate aftermath of KLG2 on Caprica.  "That the Cylons wanted to conquer the humans was obvious.  That they wanted to be human was a startling revelation.  That they wanted to be her – that was just plain crazy."
Author's Note: Welcome to my first venture into BSG fic.  All feedback is most welcome.  Enjoy!

Identity Crisis

She doesn’t know how long she’s out, curled up against the column, holding her aching sides as the world comes crashing down on her.  When she finally calms down and looks up at a face she’d long since given up for dead with the rest of everyone, she sees him still staring at her in shock.  She doesn’t blame him.  After all, why would anyone in their right mind come back to Hell?

Her eyes shift and she sees the reason propped up against the dead Cylon.  Which reminds her…

She struggles to her feet, using the column and then his arm for support.  “Come on.  It’ll be a tight squeeze but I think we can both fit inside the Raider.”  She bends carefully and grabs the Arrow. 

He’s not moving.  “Helo.  Let’s go.”

“I’m not leaving her.”

Oh, for frak’s – “You can’t be serious.”

“Starbuck, I told you, she’s-”

“She’s a Cylon.  Do you know what I’ve spent the past two months doing?  Shooting Cylons out of the frakking sky.  I’ll let this one live because it’s you asking, but there’s no way in hell I’m bringing it back to Galactica.”

“Then you’ll have to go without me.”

“Frak that!”  She isn’t hearing this. 

“They’ll be coming soon, you know,” a third voice says calmly, as Starbuck and Helo’s heads whip around to the source.  Boomer – she – it – is looking down at them from the upper level.  Kara can’t reconcile this not-Sharon with the Sharon she’s known.  Not yet.

But Helo’s been here a while, so he recovers more quickly.  “We need to hide.  You can’t run,” he says to Starbuck, and though she won’t acknowledge it, it’s the truth.

“Won’t she just tell her Cylon buddies where we are?”

“No.”  His conviction isn’t a hundred percent, but she’ll take it.

“Basement might be intact,” she says, inclining her head in its direction.  “That way.”

“How do you-”

“Been here before,” she says to cut him off before turning away, not knowing and hardly caring if they’re following her down another flight of stairs.  The adrenaline rush is gone and she hurts too much to think.

*

They find an intact office with a cot – probably some archivist’s home away from home – to which not-Sharon makes a beeline, crashing down on it and looking for all intents and purposes dead to the world.

“They sleep?”

Helo shrugs.  “They eat, they throw up, they get cold…”  They get pregnant, is the unspoken completion. 

Starbuck doesn’t care anymore; it’s not like she can reveal anything the Cylon doesn’t already know, thanks to her counterpart on Galactica.  If they work that way, which she doesn’t know and frankly doesn’t give a shit about right now.  She sinks down onto the floor with its hard carpet as Helo collapses onto the workbench. 

Helo.  Gods.

He lifts his head up when she starts laughing.  “What’s so funny?”

She shakes her head; the absurdity of going from total breakdown to hysterics is no more bizarre than the rest of her day has been.  When she regains herself, she tries to explain.  “You.  Here.  It’s…”

He catches onto the joke.  “Insane.”

“Understatement of the century.”

He leans up on an elbow.  “How is it out there, anyway?  Are they still fighting?”

She stares at him and then remembers just how much he’s missed.  “It was over before it began.”  His face drains of color.  “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I didn’t think there were any humans left alive on Caprica.  There’s barely any of us alive off Caprica.”

“We were – or I was – the only one left.  That I’ve seen.  I thought it was weird, too, until…” He nods his head towards the Cylon, whose breathing is steady and if not actually asleep, giving a damn fine impression of it.  “How many?”

She shrugs.  “Less than fifty thousand.”  He takes a sharp breath.  “I don’t know, exactly, the President’s keeping the official tally.”

“Adar made it out?”

Smirking, she replies, “No, and you’ll never guess who was left in succession.”

“So tell me.”

“Laura Roslin.”

His brow furrows as he searches for the name.

“The former Secretary of Education?  The one who was at the decommissioning?”  Now he recognizes it.  “Oh, and thanks for delivering us a Vice President, by the way.  Doctor Baltar may be a nut job, but he’s better than the alternative.”  She finds her canteen somehow intact and takes a swig so that it hides her face.

Helo’s still wrapping his head around this, so she decides to throw some more at him, because it’s fun and better than dwelling.  “Actually, you can thank the President for sending me on this crazy-ass mission and running into you.”

“What?”

She explains to him the finding of Kobol, the scrolls, the prophecy.  She doesn’t explain Adama’s lie. 

His eyes widen when she mentions the Arrow of Apollo.  “She said I had to get that, too,” he says, nodding in not-Boomer’s direction (still asleep).  “That’s why I was here.”

She doesn’t know what to think about that.  Takes another drink.

“Who else is…left?” he asks.

“Practically none of our pilots.  They’ve got me training nuggets again, if you can believe that.”  He smiles.  She takes a slow, deliberate swallow.  “Apollo’s CAG.”

“Apollo?  As in…”

“Yeah.”

He looks at her.  “How’s that working out?”

“Fine.  Better him than me.”  She keeps her gaze fixed on a tack in the wall.

“Starbuck?”

“The old man’s happy to have family alive.  Oh gods, you’ll never guess who else survived – Tigh’s wife.”

Helo nearly falls off his bench, and she congratulates herself on the successful distraction.  He was always easy that way.  “You’re shitting me.”

“Unfortunately, no.  She’s a real piece of work, too.” 

“Punched her yet?” he teases.

“Funny.”  There’s nothing at hand to throw at him, and she’s too tired to move.

“Where’d you get a Raider, anyway?”

“Souvenir,” she says.  She’s tired.  He notices.

“Look, why don’t you get some sleep?  I’ll take watch.”  He moves to get off the bench, which is just the perfect length to stretch out on, but-

“No, you first.  You’ve been running around with only a Cylon for company for how long now?”  Because as bad as she thought they had it in the fleet, she thinks it must have been worse for him.

“I didn’t know she was a Cylon till a couple days ago.”

“Still, you look way more exhausted than I feel.  I’ll make it an order if I have to, you know.”  He glares at her.  “I can’t sleep right now anyway.  Getting my ass kicked makes me hungry.  You got anything to eat?”

He shoves his pack at her.  “Some stuff we found in there.  Might be able to scrounge up more around here, somewhere.”  Thankfully, he lies back down.  “Give me two hours, then it’s your turn.”

“Not a minute more,” she agrees, digging through his bag.  Beans, beans, and more beans.  Fantastic.  “Nice selection, you should do catering.”

Helo doesn’t answer; he’s asleep. 

*

Her Viper’s rattling like it’s twenty years out of repair and out of style, which in the latter case, anyway, is true.  She swears under her breath, promising in so many words to have a few strong ones with Tyrol once she makes it back to Galactica.  One more Raider to catch, and this one’s a tricky bastard. 

“Apollo, Starbuck.  I can’t make your position.  Copy.”  There’s no answer.  “Apollo.  Do you copy?” 

The shaking gets worse as she pulls the Viper into a reverse twist that would have most pilots crying for their mothers.  Then suddenly she sees the Raider (her wingman nowhere to be found), and it’s heading straight towards her, and she must be a hell of a lot closer than she thought she was because she can actually see inside the Raider and it’s Boomer –

“Starbuck, wake up!”

The shaking turns out not to be a failing bird but Helo’s hand on her shoulder.  She jerks up from her slump against the rough wall.

“Frak, Buck, I told you two hours.”

She doesn’t answer, looking instead at the unopened can of beans in her lap.  Damn.  She had only meant to close her eyes for a second, with the threat of the –

“Where is it?” she demands, body fully alert now and head whipping around, but there’s no need; not-Sharon is still curled up on the cot.  She relaxes, marginally.

Helo, who has stepped back in self-protection, rubs a grimy palm over his sleep-weary face.  “Look, I’m going to take a look around topside, see if any of them are left.”

“You shouldn’t go alone.”  She starts to rise.

“If you come, who stays with her?”  He nods towards the cot, and she slumps back down.  “You stay and let those ribs have a little longer.”

She jerks her hand away from the side she’s been unconsciously and tenderly rubbing.  “Fine.  And see if you can find something else to eat while you’re at it.  Cafeteria’s up one level.”  It’s been years since she last came here with her mother, but from since before she could remember through age eight, they’d made the yearly pilgrimage, and even her mother’s increasing dependencies didn’t absolve her need for other sustenance.

Helo looks at her.  “You promise not to do anything?”

She gives a harsh laugh.  “Yes, Dad, I’ll keep the party downstairs and there will be no alcohol.”

“Kara, you know what I mean.”  His eyes dart over to the cot again.

“Your toaster will be here and alive when you get back.”  She rolls her eyes and he’s gone to scout and hopefully come back alive, himself.

She’s watching the door, which must be how she missed the noise.  Either that, or these human-form Cylons have perfected the art of stealth, in contrast to their metal predecessors.  In any case, she almost forgets that she’s not alone until a familiar voice cuts into her thoughts.  “She didn’t know.”

Starbuck channels the instinctive jerk into a quick turn.  “Excuse me?”

The Cylon is sitting up, feet on the floor and hands on the cot’s edge.  “The Sharon you knew.  She didn’t know she was – she never deliberately concealed it from you.” 

She curses herself for the unrealized weight that lifts off of her at this.  Says nothing.

“She wondered, though.  Things happened to her that she couldn’t explain.  But she was scared.  Really scared.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel sorry for her – it – you?”

“Does it?”

She snorts.  “What is it with you things and the pop-psychology crap?”

Not-Sharon continues undaunted.  “Having innumerable versions of yourself around really fraks with your head.  It’s one head in some ways, one self and one voice, but at the same time, you’re all working separately to fulfill your own purpose.  She couldn’t detach herself from her uniqueness and join the whole.  I can’t escape the whole and be fully myself.”  She makes eye contact for the first time.  “Have you ever lost your sense of identity?”

A frakked knee and permanently out of her passion; losing and finding herself in someone else; losing him and consequently herself; the end of the world; another injury giving her rightful place to someone else; the wrong name. 

“No,” she answers.

“For us, it’s like that, but constantly.  You’re never just you.  Not like you are.”  She shifts, and Starbuck senses the change in meaning of that final pronoun.  “Why do you think he wanted to know you so well, even though he knew you’d kill him?  Why did your Sharon watch you so closely at Triad?  Why are you the one here on Caprica?”

Starbuck feels like she should say something, but it sticks in her throat and not-Sharon isn’t waiting for an answer anyway.

“You’re part of God’s plan, Starbuck.”  This, finally, shakes her out of her daze, but the Cylon presses on.  “The others want to make you fulfill your place in that plan, but I think they’re wrong.  I think they’re missing the real sign.”

“And what would that be?”  It comes out with a hint of curiosity that she didn’t intend.

“You’re the sign.  He wants his children to be heavenly in body and human in soul, and you have the most human soul that we’ve ever seen.”

If she wasn’t fully creeped out before, that does it. 

“You take possession of yourself and your destiny.  You know who you are.”  Her hand drifts towards her abdomen, and Starbuck realizes what she means.

“That’s why you–”  She nods towards not-Sharon’s hand.  “That’s what you’re trying to do.”  The Cylon nods slowly and even seems to relax a notch.

And as strange and twisted as this day has already been, Starbuck feels it taking another turn as she follows the logic of this – woman – maybe – who looks like her friend but has an entirely different aura, as her mother would’ve put it.  That the Cylons wanted to conquer the humans was obvious.  That they wanted to be human was a startling revelation.  That they wanted to be her – that was just plain crazy.  Although come to think of it, if they succeeded, they’d all be so spectacularly frakked up that they’d probably self-destruct, so maybe it was a good thing.

Not-Sharon is still watching her with intent and, Kara realizes, fascination, and suddenly it’s Leoben all over again and up is down, down is up, Tigh’s a model of sobriety and his wife is a nun, Hot Dog’s winning at cards and she says the right name with the right person.

“I want to escape them as much as you do.  You can trust me.”

The old man doesn’t know where Earth is. 

“No.”  She interrupts the Cylon’s protests, doing her best to rise without shaking in her exhaustion.  “Because at the end of the day, you are a Cylon, which means you are a machine whose entire purpose is to destroy us.  I don’t know when or how, but you will try to betray us.  And when that happens, I will have no hesitation in blowing your frakking head off.”

Her knee is throbbing; she sinks back down and tries not to wince.  “Even real humans can’t escape their programming.”

The door opens to a triumphant Helo, bearing cans of something liquid and foil-wrapped boxes of something solid.  “Dinner is served!  Oh, and I think the coast is clear above.”

Starbuck sits down on the bench and accepts his offerings, taking her eyes off the Cylon.  For now.

Because honestly, she has a lot more to worry about right now than a toaster’s identity crisis.

*