FIC: The New Caprica Suicides
Jun. 30th, 2011 10:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
embolaliaTitle: The New Caprica Suicides
Rating: R (but not the sexy kind)
Genre: Angst
Rating: R (but not the sexy kind)
Genre: Angst
Word Count: 700
Characters: Duck, Kara, others
Summary: For some of them, four months is too long.
This was inspired by today’s![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
bsg_epics discussion, about what stories we’d like to write into the New Caprica arc. I haven’t written about it much at all, but my favorite scene on New Caprica (in the sense of being fascinated not, you know, enjoying it) is Kara’s suicide attempt. So my mind went there, then leapt to 33 and EJO’s excised improv about the number of suicides. And then there was this. Fair warning: these are really dark.
The New Caprica Suicides
Duck
Her picture is smeared with fingerprints that he can’t wipe away. Their picture, really. Just a day like any other. The film ran out long before their wedding.
It’s the last decision Duck has to make, for the rest of his life, and he’s paralyzed. Take it with him into the inferno, keep her next to his heart, or leave it with Jammer, to be carried safely into the cradle of Galactica’s hulls.
He stares at her all night, waiting for guidance.
In the morning he presses the photo into Jammer’s hands, hoping for something he’s given up believing in.
David
Once on Caprica he was hiding in the woods, waiting for an ambush, when a dog ran up to him, barking happily at finding someone. Another Delphi stray, its owner lost in the attacks. David tried to quiet the dog, stroked its ears. It kept whining, hungry. In the end he broke its neck, tears streaming down his face. They were all dead if the cylons detected them.
It was all for nothing. That and so much more. The only thing he can take from the cylons now is his own life.
David closes his eyes, steps off the chair.
Julia
After the apocalypse, when she couldn’t sleep between jumps, couldn’t eat without vomiting, couldn’t imagine anything but her sons’ bodies burning with radiation while they screamed for her, Julia came so close to this.
Then the doctor said she was pregnant.
When the cylon ripped Kacey from her arms, she screamed, fought. But ever since she woke alone on the dirt path, she’s felt the cavernous grief she still feels for her boys filling her to overflowing.
She grips the knife in her hand, but finally can’t use it. The chance Kacey’s alive is small, but she can’t give up.
Boomer
She sits on the porch, rubbing at the flaky white paint on the beams. Their house beckons behind her. She can’t bear it.
That first day, when she and Caprica won, Boomer began to dream. After what they’d accomplished, nothing seemed too far-fetched. He had loved her once; surely once he understood what she’d done, he’d love her again.
Today in the market there was hatred in his eyes. And recognition, which burned worse.
She closes her eyes, ends the projection--weapons don’t belong there. Fires.
This time, like the first time, like every time, her final words are the same.
Sona
Cain offered them the promise of death, but death with meaning. The cylons pretend to promise life, but it means nothing. Sona drifts from day to day, remembering with every clanking Centurion that passes all the grief she burned away in order to survive Pegasus.
Once she made Vipers, sent them out into the darkness to wreak vengeance. Until the cylons came at last, she had a job to do. There was no hope of victory, but there was no time for hopelessness.
Now there’s nothing else. Sona walks up to the cylon, commands it, falls limp at its feet.
Kara
Kara Thrace has summoned many gods since she was brought here. Mars, Nemesis, and Zeus when she needed speed and a sure hand to kill Leoben. Aprhodite, Athena, Artemis to protect her family out there, fighting without her. Once even Pluto, for knowledge of whether Sam and Lee still lived.
This time, as her shaking hand presses a blade to her wrist, she begs Persephone, who might understand. To take away the sin, to give her permission. To let her give up this once if they’re never coming back.
Leoben interrupts before the gods answer. She might do it anyway.
Tomas
There’s a song he can’t quite remember, that his grandmother sang at his grandfather’s funeral: something in Old Geminese, something about a flight of songbirds in the depths of winter.
Tomas gazes out over the expanse of the river, patchy with ice. There are no birds here. There may not be any birds left in the universe, or anyone who still sings his grandmother’s song.
He takes a few steps forward. The chill of the water bites into his legs through his workpants.
As darkness falls Tomas stumbles back to the tent city. He won’t do it until he remembers.
Characters: Duck, Kara, others
Summary: For some of them, four months is too long.
This was inspired by today’s
bsg_epics discussion, about what stories we’d like to write into the New Caprica arc. I haven’t written about it much at all, but my favorite scene on New Caprica (in the sense of being fascinated not, you know, enjoying it) is Kara’s suicide attempt. So my mind went there, then leapt to 33 and EJO’s excised improv about the number of suicides. And then there was this. Fair warning: these are really dark.The New Caprica Suicides
Duck
Her picture is smeared with fingerprints that he can’t wipe away. Their picture, really. Just a day like any other. The film ran out long before their wedding.
It’s the last decision Duck has to make, for the rest of his life, and he’s paralyzed. Take it with him into the inferno, keep her next to his heart, or leave it with Jammer, to be carried safely into the cradle of Galactica’s hulls.
He stares at her all night, waiting for guidance.
In the morning he presses the photo into Jammer’s hands, hoping for something he’s given up believing in.
David
Once on Caprica he was hiding in the woods, waiting for an ambush, when a dog ran up to him, barking happily at finding someone. Another Delphi stray, its owner lost in the attacks. David tried to quiet the dog, stroked its ears. It kept whining, hungry. In the end he broke its neck, tears streaming down his face. They were all dead if the cylons detected them.
It was all for nothing. That and so much more. The only thing he can take from the cylons now is his own life.
David closes his eyes, steps off the chair.
Julia
After the apocalypse, when she couldn’t sleep between jumps, couldn’t eat without vomiting, couldn’t imagine anything but her sons’ bodies burning with radiation while they screamed for her, Julia came so close to this.
Then the doctor said she was pregnant.
When the cylon ripped Kacey from her arms, she screamed, fought. But ever since she woke alone on the dirt path, she’s felt the cavernous grief she still feels for her boys filling her to overflowing.
She grips the knife in her hand, but finally can’t use it. The chance Kacey’s alive is small, but she can’t give up.
Boomer
She sits on the porch, rubbing at the flaky white paint on the beams. Their house beckons behind her. She can’t bear it.
That first day, when she and Caprica won, Boomer began to dream. After what they’d accomplished, nothing seemed too far-fetched. He had loved her once; surely once he understood what she’d done, he’d love her again.
Today in the market there was hatred in his eyes. And recognition, which burned worse.
She closes her eyes, ends the projection--weapons don’t belong there. Fires.
This time, like the first time, like every time, her final words are the same.
Sona
Cain offered them the promise of death, but death with meaning. The cylons pretend to promise life, but it means nothing. Sona drifts from day to day, remembering with every clanking Centurion that passes all the grief she burned away in order to survive Pegasus.
Once she made Vipers, sent them out into the darkness to wreak vengeance. Until the cylons came at last, she had a job to do. There was no hope of victory, but there was no time for hopelessness.
Now there’s nothing else. Sona walks up to the cylon, commands it, falls limp at its feet.
Kara
Kara Thrace has summoned many gods since she was brought here. Mars, Nemesis, and Zeus when she needed speed and a sure hand to kill Leoben. Aprhodite, Athena, Artemis to protect her family out there, fighting without her. Once even Pluto, for knowledge of whether Sam and Lee still lived.
This time, as her shaking hand presses a blade to her wrist, she begs Persephone, who might understand. To take away the sin, to give her permission. To let her give up this once if they’re never coming back.
Leoben interrupts before the gods answer. She might do it anyway.
Tomas
There’s a song he can’t quite remember, that his grandmother sang at his grandfather’s funeral: something in Old Geminese, something about a flight of songbirds in the depths of winter.
Tomas gazes out over the expanse of the river, patchy with ice. There are no birds here. There may not be any birds left in the universe, or anyone who still sings his grandmother’s song.
He takes a few steps forward. The chill of the water bites into his legs through his workpants.
As darkness falls Tomas stumbles back to the tent city. He won’t do it until he remembers.
