Fic: Descant (chapter 3)
Jan. 22nd, 2012 12:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
embolaliaTitle: Descant (Chapter 3)
Rating: R
Characters: Kara/Leoben, Laura, Caprica, Boomer, & more
Word Count (this chapter): 1,792
WARNINGS: Non-canon character death. Canon-level violence and themes.
A/N: This is an AU that begins as the Cylons reach New Caprica and before Leoben imprisons Kara, so for those of you whose aversion to Kara/Leoben begins with the canon dollhouse, I hope you'll try this out.
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Eight forks, eight spoons. Two curtains framing every window. Six chairs around the dining table. He can’t show her the truth of projection, can only give her this shadow of their home.
But now, with her in it, the apartment is complete. Leoben lies beside Kara on the bed, staring, afraid to blink, unwilling to sleep. Her nearness is like a drug, mesmerizing him, quieting all the whispers that usually follow him. He hears only his own blood pounding in his ears. He can smell her, can feel the light breeze of her breath as he eases closer. For an instant he sees her cry out beneath him and his body hardens with need. Leoben breathes slowly, purges the physical from his thoughts. It is enough to be near her.
Kara stirs slowly. The sheets around her are warm and soft and there’s a reason she should be sad that she doesn’t want to remember. Someone shifts beside her and for just a moment, just a fraction of a second, she thinks it’s Sam and her eyes open.
A whimper escapes her lips: Sam is dead.
Leoben wakes, his face transformed by joy at finding her beside him. He reaches out, his hand hovering over Kara’s cheek. When she doesn’t flinch, he rests it against her skin. “How are you feeling?” he asks, his voice rough with sleep.
She opens her mouth to answer and winces. Her jaw is aching, and new pains are making themselves known: bruised ribs, the tightness of bandages on her arm. “What happened?”
A shadow crosses his face. “You set off a bomb.”
Kara’s eyes widen at the memory. “You died.”
“Yes.”
Her face contorts. She rests her hand against his cheek in turn, tracing the faint wrinkles, running her fingertips over his perfect facsimile of an eyebrow. “You’re still you?”
He nods beneath her touch. “I won’t ever leave you, Kara.”
She can feel the truth of it: unlike Lee, unlike Sam, unlike her father and Adama and Zak, this man will never go away. Something shifts, comes into focus.
For an instant a smile touches her lips, and then she withdraws, sighing with appreciation as she shifts on the soft cushion of the mattress before swinging her legs over the side. “Leoben--” she says tightly, finding herself in only her underwear and tanks as she sits up.
“Your clothes were burned,” he says evenly. “Dirty.”
She nods, slides off the bed. Her injuries have been bandaged; he must have done that, too.
Kara shuffles across the room, pulling on a shirt and pants that are a touch too small. Boomer’s size, she thinks, remembering the old days on Galactica and mixed up laundry. She slowly takes in the similarity to her old apartment. "Even creepier than the last place," she mutters. The window overlooks the settlement: neat rows of tents, dim and dusty in the harsh, unfocused light. Here and there it glints off the metal body of a Centurion. Her people swirl away from them, their motion visible from up here: a pattern, a purpose. Her people.
She turns back to Leoben. He's watching her from a few yards away, patient, full of awe.
"Why did you bring me here?"
"You were in pain." His eyes are sincere.
"Can I leave?"
He's crestfallen for a moment. "The door isn't locked."
Kara nods, glances back out the window. "I want to speak to the President. Not Baltar, Roslin. Can you do that?"
Leoben hesitates. "Why?"
She studies him. "Do you trust me?"
"Yes," he answers at once.
"I need to talk to her."
*
No one pays attention as they move through the halls of the detention facility. As they approach the occupied cells, Leoben draws to a halt.
“What?” Kara whispers tightly.
He exhales slowly, looking at the Four at the other end of the corridor passing food through a window into a cell. “They can’t see you like this, free.”
Kara frowns.
Leoben looks at her searchingly. “Do you trust me, Kara?”
She stares at him a long time before answering. “I guess.”
“Come here, then.” Leoben turns her away from him, tugs her arms gently so her wrists rest against the small of her back. He wraps his hand around them, tight enough that she couldn’t pull away if he wanted to stop her. His thumb strokes the pulse point at the inside of her wrist. Leoben takes a deep breath, inhaling the smell of her hair. “This way,” he murmurs.
With a nod to the Four, Leoben guides Kara down the hall and quickly unlocks a thick metal door with his free hand.
Light spills inside, across a dirty room. Laura Roslin is huddled in the corner.
Kara pulls free as soon as the door closes, runs to the President.
Laura’s eyes light up for just a moment, ecstatic, then fall closed in grief when she sees Leoben.
It takes only a few minutes to realize that they’ll get nowhere as long as Leoben is in the room, so he leaves. He slips out the door and into the neighboring observation chamber, needing to see Kara.
In the cell she’s explaining to Laura what losses they’ve taken, that the people are scared and hopeless. That there’s no strategy left that will do any good. That they can’t fight anymore. Her words fade as Leoben watches her. The stream seems to swirl around her, spirals of color staining the air. Destiny is happening right here, in front of him. Alone in the dim room he grins wildly.
“We can’t give up,” Laura says, her voice strangled from disuse and dehydration.
Kara stares at her a long moment, then looks up at the window so sharply that Leoben thinks she can sense him. “You were the one, back at Ragnar. The Admiral told me that, once. You were the one who knew we’d already lost and shouldn’t waste our lives fighting.”
Laura Roslin sighs, looking for just a moment more like a tired schoolteacher than a president. “Baltar already surrendered,” she says flatly. “They have what they want.”
“No,” Kara says slowly. “I don’t think they do.” She turns toward the window, and this time Leoben knows she is aware of him. She smiles grimly. “I need you to take us to your leaders.”
*
D’Anna stumbles through the streets, distracted by the events of the past hour. She’ll know love, the oracle told her. Will hold Hera in her own arms. Her mind scoffs, but her heart thrills to the idea, to the emotion she’s glimpsed on the faces of human mothers, of Gaius and Caprica in their weak moments. And Boomer. D’Anna grunts, shaking her head. They should all be boxed.
*
Leoben finds his sisters together, these two who planned everything, sitting at the edge of a lake. Boomer is staring out over the water, face blank with grief. Her head rests on Caprica’s shoulder as her sister presses a cheek to her hair. Leoben nods to Caprica, glad to find them anywhere but in the house Boomer built.
“It’s time,” he says simply.
Boomer looks up, blinking, sniffling. “For what?”
Caprica doesn’t question, just tugs her sister to her feet.
“This isn’t working,” he says. “But it will. You need to come with me.” They know him well enough that even Boomer smiles at his words. They follow him through the halls and back to Laura Roslin’s cell.
The former president shrinks back against the wall as the Cylons enter, even as Boomer raises her hand in greeting. Kara stares at her in horror and fascination, takes in Caprica with a flare of recognition. Leoben crosses the room to stand shoulder to shoulder with Kara. The stream swirls around him now, too.
Kara opens her mouth to speak, then stops, gaze fixed on Boomer’s reddened eyes. “I’m sorry about Chief,” she finally says.
“Oh!” Boomer gasps, blinking hard, arms wrapping around herself.
And Kara steps forward, hugs the younger woman tightly. Leoben hears her whisper, “We lost Sam, too,” and Boomer returns the hug.
His eyes leap to Roslin, to her confusion and wonder at Kara’s display. He smiles.
At last Kara withdraws. “We have to do things differently,” she says urgently, staring into Boomer’s face, still holding her hands. She turns to Caprica. “This isn’t what the Gods want. And I don’t think it’s what yours wants, either. If you came here for real peace--”
“We did,” Caprica answers.
Kara nods. “It can’t be this. Centurions in control, humans under guard. There’s no future in this except more people dying. There are few enough of us left as it is.” Her voice is hard but close to breaking, halfway between demanding and pleading.
“We just wanted to be together,” Boomer says sadly. “All of us. We should never have come here.”
Kara squeezes her hand. “First you have to release the prisoners. There has to be real negotiation.”
Caprica looks to Leoben. “Cavil will resist it. We have superior fire power. He will never cede control to the humans.”
“Well make him,” Kara snaps.
“We vote,” Boomer says.
Laura starts to laugh, almost hysterically. “Vote, then,” she says. “We’ll be waiting.”
*
They go together, Caprica and Boomer and Kara and Leoben. Kara stiffens when they reach the others, as Simon studies her slowly. Leoben takes hold of her wrist again, squeezes until she turns to him with a nod and pulls away. He sees Cavil watching.
“We did this wrong,” Boomer starts.
“We wanted to create somewhere that we could all live in God’s love,” Caprica continues.
“God this, God that,” Cavil retorts. “You wanted a petting zoo for your favorite humans and we built you one. No use complaining now.”
“We’re hardly--” Gaius interrupts from a corner, but Doral cuts him off.
“There’s no need for us to surrender.”
“We will curb the remaining resistance in due time,” Simon adds.
Leoben laces his fingers through Kara’s, her palm warm against his. “D’Anna?” he asks softly.
She shakes her head at him, so sadly. “The three of you,” she says derisively. “So in love.” She spits the word like an epithet.
For a moment he sees everything, as clearly as in the moment between death and life, but it’s all so quick he can’t understand: Cavil, talking to people he doesn’t recognize but should; Kara gripping his hand above a tub; a bright mural of stars; a resurrection hub exploding in a cloud of shrapnel; Kara screaming out as he surges into her body; children, playing in grass greener than anything on this planet.
The flow of words around him is briefly incomprehensible. The only thing that anchors Leoben to his own life is Kara, squeezing his hand.
Chapter 4
Rating: R
Characters: Kara/Leoben, Laura, Caprica, Boomer, & more
Word Count (this chapter): 1,792
WARNINGS: Non-canon character death. Canon-level violence and themes.
A/N: This is an AU that begins as the Cylons reach New Caprica and before Leoben imprisons Kara, so for those of you whose aversion to Kara/Leoben begins with the canon dollhouse, I hope you'll try this out.
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Eight forks, eight spoons. Two curtains framing every window. Six chairs around the dining table. He can’t show her the truth of projection, can only give her this shadow of their home.
But now, with her in it, the apartment is complete. Leoben lies beside Kara on the bed, staring, afraid to blink, unwilling to sleep. Her nearness is like a drug, mesmerizing him, quieting all the whispers that usually follow him. He hears only his own blood pounding in his ears. He can smell her, can feel the light breeze of her breath as he eases closer. For an instant he sees her cry out beneath him and his body hardens with need. Leoben breathes slowly, purges the physical from his thoughts. It is enough to be near her.
Kara stirs slowly. The sheets around her are warm and soft and there’s a reason she should be sad that she doesn’t want to remember. Someone shifts beside her and for just a moment, just a fraction of a second, she thinks it’s Sam and her eyes open.
A whimper escapes her lips: Sam is dead.
Leoben wakes, his face transformed by joy at finding her beside him. He reaches out, his hand hovering over Kara’s cheek. When she doesn’t flinch, he rests it against her skin. “How are you feeling?” he asks, his voice rough with sleep.
She opens her mouth to answer and winces. Her jaw is aching, and new pains are making themselves known: bruised ribs, the tightness of bandages on her arm. “What happened?”
A shadow crosses his face. “You set off a bomb.”
Kara’s eyes widen at the memory. “You died.”
“Yes.”
Her face contorts. She rests her hand against his cheek in turn, tracing the faint wrinkles, running her fingertips over his perfect facsimile of an eyebrow. “You’re still you?”
He nods beneath her touch. “I won’t ever leave you, Kara.”
She can feel the truth of it: unlike Lee, unlike Sam, unlike her father and Adama and Zak, this man will never go away. Something shifts, comes into focus.
For an instant a smile touches her lips, and then she withdraws, sighing with appreciation as she shifts on the soft cushion of the mattress before swinging her legs over the side. “Leoben--” she says tightly, finding herself in only her underwear and tanks as she sits up.
“Your clothes were burned,” he says evenly. “Dirty.”
She nods, slides off the bed. Her injuries have been bandaged; he must have done that, too.
Kara shuffles across the room, pulling on a shirt and pants that are a touch too small. Boomer’s size, she thinks, remembering the old days on Galactica and mixed up laundry. She slowly takes in the similarity to her old apartment. "Even creepier than the last place," she mutters. The window overlooks the settlement: neat rows of tents, dim and dusty in the harsh, unfocused light. Here and there it glints off the metal body of a Centurion. Her people swirl away from them, their motion visible from up here: a pattern, a purpose. Her people.
She turns back to Leoben. He's watching her from a few yards away, patient, full of awe.
"Why did you bring me here?"
"You were in pain." His eyes are sincere.
"Can I leave?"
He's crestfallen for a moment. "The door isn't locked."
Kara nods, glances back out the window. "I want to speak to the President. Not Baltar, Roslin. Can you do that?"
Leoben hesitates. "Why?"
She studies him. "Do you trust me?"
"Yes," he answers at once.
"I need to talk to her."
*
No one pays attention as they move through the halls of the detention facility. As they approach the occupied cells, Leoben draws to a halt.
“What?” Kara whispers tightly.
He exhales slowly, looking at the Four at the other end of the corridor passing food through a window into a cell. “They can’t see you like this, free.”
Kara frowns.
Leoben looks at her searchingly. “Do you trust me, Kara?”
She stares at him a long time before answering. “I guess.”
“Come here, then.” Leoben turns her away from him, tugs her arms gently so her wrists rest against the small of her back. He wraps his hand around them, tight enough that she couldn’t pull away if he wanted to stop her. His thumb strokes the pulse point at the inside of her wrist. Leoben takes a deep breath, inhaling the smell of her hair. “This way,” he murmurs.
With a nod to the Four, Leoben guides Kara down the hall and quickly unlocks a thick metal door with his free hand.
Light spills inside, across a dirty room. Laura Roslin is huddled in the corner.
Kara pulls free as soon as the door closes, runs to the President.
Laura’s eyes light up for just a moment, ecstatic, then fall closed in grief when she sees Leoben.
It takes only a few minutes to realize that they’ll get nowhere as long as Leoben is in the room, so he leaves. He slips out the door and into the neighboring observation chamber, needing to see Kara.
In the cell she’s explaining to Laura what losses they’ve taken, that the people are scared and hopeless. That there’s no strategy left that will do any good. That they can’t fight anymore. Her words fade as Leoben watches her. The stream seems to swirl around her, spirals of color staining the air. Destiny is happening right here, in front of him. Alone in the dim room he grins wildly.
“We can’t give up,” Laura says, her voice strangled from disuse and dehydration.
Kara stares at her a long moment, then looks up at the window so sharply that Leoben thinks she can sense him. “You were the one, back at Ragnar. The Admiral told me that, once. You were the one who knew we’d already lost and shouldn’t waste our lives fighting.”
Laura Roslin sighs, looking for just a moment more like a tired schoolteacher than a president. “Baltar already surrendered,” she says flatly. “They have what they want.”
“No,” Kara says slowly. “I don’t think they do.” She turns toward the window, and this time Leoben knows she is aware of him. She smiles grimly. “I need you to take us to your leaders.”
*
D’Anna stumbles through the streets, distracted by the events of the past hour. She’ll know love, the oracle told her. Will hold Hera in her own arms. Her mind scoffs, but her heart thrills to the idea, to the emotion she’s glimpsed on the faces of human mothers, of Gaius and Caprica in their weak moments. And Boomer. D’Anna grunts, shaking her head. They should all be boxed.
*
Leoben finds his sisters together, these two who planned everything, sitting at the edge of a lake. Boomer is staring out over the water, face blank with grief. Her head rests on Caprica’s shoulder as her sister presses a cheek to her hair. Leoben nods to Caprica, glad to find them anywhere but in the house Boomer built.
“It’s time,” he says simply.
Boomer looks up, blinking, sniffling. “For what?”
Caprica doesn’t question, just tugs her sister to her feet.
“This isn’t working,” he says. “But it will. You need to come with me.” They know him well enough that even Boomer smiles at his words. They follow him through the halls and back to Laura Roslin’s cell.
The former president shrinks back against the wall as the Cylons enter, even as Boomer raises her hand in greeting. Kara stares at her in horror and fascination, takes in Caprica with a flare of recognition. Leoben crosses the room to stand shoulder to shoulder with Kara. The stream swirls around him now, too.
Kara opens her mouth to speak, then stops, gaze fixed on Boomer’s reddened eyes. “I’m sorry about Chief,” she finally says.
“Oh!” Boomer gasps, blinking hard, arms wrapping around herself.
And Kara steps forward, hugs the younger woman tightly. Leoben hears her whisper, “We lost Sam, too,” and Boomer returns the hug.
His eyes leap to Roslin, to her confusion and wonder at Kara’s display. He smiles.
At last Kara withdraws. “We have to do things differently,” she says urgently, staring into Boomer’s face, still holding her hands. She turns to Caprica. “This isn’t what the Gods want. And I don’t think it’s what yours wants, either. If you came here for real peace--”
“We did,” Caprica answers.
Kara nods. “It can’t be this. Centurions in control, humans under guard. There’s no future in this except more people dying. There are few enough of us left as it is.” Her voice is hard but close to breaking, halfway between demanding and pleading.
“We just wanted to be together,” Boomer says sadly. “All of us. We should never have come here.”
Kara squeezes her hand. “First you have to release the prisoners. There has to be real negotiation.”
Caprica looks to Leoben. “Cavil will resist it. We have superior fire power. He will never cede control to the humans.”
“Well make him,” Kara snaps.
“We vote,” Boomer says.
Laura starts to laugh, almost hysterically. “Vote, then,” she says. “We’ll be waiting.”
*
They go together, Caprica and Boomer and Kara and Leoben. Kara stiffens when they reach the others, as Simon studies her slowly. Leoben takes hold of her wrist again, squeezes until she turns to him with a nod and pulls away. He sees Cavil watching.
“We did this wrong,” Boomer starts.
“We wanted to create somewhere that we could all live in God’s love,” Caprica continues.
“God this, God that,” Cavil retorts. “You wanted a petting zoo for your favorite humans and we built you one. No use complaining now.”
“We’re hardly--” Gaius interrupts from a corner, but Doral cuts him off.
“There’s no need for us to surrender.”
“We will curb the remaining resistance in due time,” Simon adds.
Leoben laces his fingers through Kara’s, her palm warm against his. “D’Anna?” he asks softly.
She shakes her head at him, so sadly. “The three of you,” she says derisively. “So in love.” She spits the word like an epithet.
For a moment he sees everything, as clearly as in the moment between death and life, but it’s all so quick he can’t understand: Cavil, talking to people he doesn’t recognize but should; Kara gripping his hand above a tub; a bright mural of stars; a resurrection hub exploding in a cloud of shrapnel; Kara screaming out as he surges into her body; children, playing in grass greener than anything on this planet.
The flow of words around him is briefly incomprehensible. The only thing that anchors Leoben to his own life is Kara, squeezing his hand.
Chapter 4
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2012-01-22 06:04 pm (UTC)LOL
I love this:
She can feel the truth of it: unlike Lee, unlike Sam, unlike her father and Adama and Zak, this man will never go away. Something shifts, comes into focus.
It really helps me understand Kara's attachment to and fascination with Leoben in this AU and even in canon.
And this:
You wanted a petting zoo for your favorite humans and we built you one.
It's so perfectly Cavil but also a great explanation for NC and the cylon fascination with humans. The way Kara is turning out to be the peacekeeper (with Laura's backing!) and the theme of love between the cylons and humans is unexpected and thoughtprovoking.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-22 06:18 pm (UTC)This is one variation on the theories of why Kara would love Leoben, but it works for me as a starting point, the idea that he won't die. There are also layers of him allowing her to be her darkest self, and him knowing her whole story and loving her anyway. More of that will be explored here, too. :)
no subject
Date: 2012-01-22 09:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-22 11:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-23 02:58 am (UTC)Absolutely amazing writing. I wish you'd posted the entire thing at once. I would have read it all in a sitting. #Fact
no subject
Date: 2012-01-23 03:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-23 04:33 pm (UTC)This is so D'Anna, oh man.
This whole premise is so fascinating, even if my poor baby Sam had to be sacrificed. Can't wait for the next part!
no subject
Date: 2012-01-23 05:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-23 05:49 pm (UTC)I think you broke me!
This is wonderful, the tying together of the threads. Caprica and Boomer's characterisation. Cavil's caustic lines. And the scenes with Laura are wonderful.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-24 03:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-23 06:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-24 03:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-24 02:51 am (UTC)Really want more of this NOW, (yeah, I know, I'm greedy).
no subject
Date: 2012-01-24 03:05 am (UTC)It makes me so happy when people read my work thoughtfully. Honestly, I write more with instinct than intent, so I love the analysis :)
no subject
Date: 2013-12-22 06:55 pm (UTC)I'm so glad I'm finally reading this. ♥
no subject
Date: 2014-01-01 11:11 pm (UTC)