Mirrors lie, you decide one early morning.

It’s been raining for days and you lie awake in your bed, alone, wondering whether it will ever stop. It gathers in large puddles in the middle of the unpaved streets, it flows down from the tents in sheets, it trickles inside the tents muddying up the ground, it muffles the sound of machinery. You’ve noticed the small drops ricochet off the bodies of centurions, breaking into another thousand pieces, creating tiny, almost invisible rainbows that die the split second after they’re born.

One of the other days, you noticed the mud sticking to your shoes. You wear sturdy shoes now, not the nice ones you’re used to. The mud stuck to the leather, and to the soles. You looked down at it, then slowly lifted one foot, then the other. Sticky, dirty, strange and unfamiliar. The shoes lie now by the foot of your bed, the mud dry and starting to cake on the sides.

Mirrors lie. They always show the opposite of that which is true. If you got up and looked in the mirror, would the sun be shining outside in the reflection? Somehow you doubt it. Even in that, they lie.

Everything is relative, she tells Saul whenever he gathers the courage to call her on things.

She didn’t cheat on him, she says, for she never stopped loving him. She didn’t leave him for other men, he was the one always leaving her alone, to fend for herself. She didn’t drink too much, he didn’t drink enough. And she most definitely never tried to interfere in his work, he just never talked to her, and, well, she was his wife, it was her right to know. And her privilege.

Bullshit, he says, and pours himself another drink. She smiles, and lets him be. To explain to him why things are relative would be just as impossible as to get him to explain to her why they aren’t.

With Saul, things are, or things aren’t. Facts on the ground, he calls them. To be one thing and not be the other, to be defined by opposition, and not inclusion, is foreign to her. The only fact on the ground, as far as she’s concerned, is that she loves him.

The only relative thing in the world, as far as Saul Tigh is concerned, is the love of his wife.

I watch her with the corner of my eye, and can’t help wondering what she’s hiding. She’s sipping her coffee with a quiet attitude that probably wouldn’t bother me in anyone else, but in I find irritating in her. Perhaps because I know it’s a façade. Or perhaps because I fear it’s not.

I’d like to get her drunk if I could. I’d like to show up on her doorstep, with a full bottle of ambrosia, and ask if I could come in. I’d pour the drinks, and I’d ask the questions. I’ve never had many lady friends, they’re more trouble than they’re worth, and always manage to wedge their way between me and the things I want, but she’s different. She doesn’t take any shit from people, and neither do I.

Funny, but I’ve learned that people are at their most honest when they’re drunk. I wonder just how honest Laura Roslin would be while I drank her under the table.

Tomorrow we’re moving down to New Caprica.

I am still not sure why I wanted to go in the first place, and I am even more unsure about whether I am happy about it or not. Truth of the matter is, I just wanted to get off this frakking ship, do something new, for a change. Something other than waiting around for Bill to decided it’s time for us to just move down and start a life. However pathetic that life might be.

Saul is uneasy about leaving the old man alone, but I say he’s old enough to take care of himself. Something about lighthouses, he said, but I can’t remember, I don’t think I was paying too much attention to him.

It’ll be nice breathing some fresh air again. Last time we went down, a few weeks ago, the weather was perfect. We’ve been cooped up in these metal boxes for so long I’ve forgotten how wonderful wind felt, running through my hair, caressing my skin. I sound like a 17 year old, I know, but gods, it felt good.

And I’ll have to admit, all the fun people are down there. None of the losers stuck up here know how to throw a party, and Bill was never a good host, with that brooding expressions of his, sipping his drink as if it were tea.

In the end, this is good. I was always good as starting anew. Not that good at whatever came after, but I’m good at starting from the beginning. Perhaps this time it’ll stick with me. Not like I have anywhere else to go.

How does one quantify happiness, you ask yourself while pushing your hands deeper into the pockets of your coat? How does one define unhappiness?

You push a strand of hair from your eyes as you walk down the street. First slowly, almost hesitantly, then faster and faster. You have no watch, but something inside drives you to hurry. You stop in your tracks when you see him walk out of that cursed building.

His eyes – oh my gods, he’s wearing a bandage over one eye, what have they done to him? – are lost, somewhere far, looking, almost through you, yet searching for you all the same. There’s something in the way he moves – he limps; he has a limp, they’ve hurt him – that makes you think of an accident victim, disoriented and surprised to still be alive.

“Saul,” you call out to him, and his name catches in your throat as if it were too large to swallow whole. His arms feel strong as he embraces you, yet you can feel the tremble of his hands, the way his fingers clutch at the fabric of your coat, as if afraid that if he lets go you’ll dissolve and slip from his grasp.

If holding on to love were only as simple as holding on to someone and never letting them go, life would be wonderful.

Sometimes you fall asleep on the couch.

It’s a nasty old couch, and you hate it, but sometimes you fall asleep on it. It’s cheap, and you despise cheap things. It isn’t real leather, and that’s a minus as well, because it smells of poverty. It’s some sort of standard military issue couch, you’ve seen many like it in other officer’s quarters, and of course that makes it even more despicable because you hate sharing. And then there’s of course the fact that it sweats and your skin sticks to it, being impregnated with the hateful smell of poverty and cheapness. You’d get a new one if you could, or at least refurbish this one, clean it to wash away the staleness, but your options are limited to none.

In spite of all that, you find yourself falling asleep on it, head propped against the arm-rests, snoring deeply while an empty bottle of ambrosia lies on the table beside you. You pull one of the blankets over yourself sometimes, and curl up on the damn thing, hating the smell and the feel and the sweat, and sleep the best and deepest sleep you’ve ever slept.

You don’t exactly know why, but there are moments when you stop dead in your tracks on the other side of there room, look at it, and see Saul. It isn’t the light, and it isn’t the three glasses of ambrosia you’ve usually had by that time of day, it’s the way it just stands there, a sweaty, standard military issue couch that you keep falling asleep on.

edit: again, borrowing ellen's journal. she so totally doesn't mind her "master" taking over from time to time, seeing as she has no journal of her own. ;)

i've struggled with this story the way jacob strugled with the angel of god. it might sound a little overdramatic, but i've lost count of the re-writes i've done, of the false starts, of the passages i wrote then deleted. i'm still not completely happy with it, and seeing that it isn't beta-ed either, it's probably far from a definitive form, but i probably won't be looking at it for months, to let it "cool". it was supposed to be finished for asta77's b-day, but at the rate i'm going it'll probably be finished for her next b-day only. so, here it is, in it's rough form, after three months of work, still dedicated to asta77 with a very belated happy b-day wish. ;)

title: the unreverberate darkness of the abyss
rating: PG13-ish, i think
characters: laura, lee, bill, short mention of kara (if you blink you'll miss it)
further notes: i took liberties. i took losts of liberties. mostly with language, and that horrible cliche about how you should show and not tell when writing. i told things, because i want to show something beneath those things i told. there's a twist to the story, something that happened as i was writing it, something i didn't count on, but it makes so much sense. if anyone can make sense of this, i'll be happy. if not, well, it was still fun struggling with it.

( i don’t fall for her, but falling with her is easier.  )

If my love mattered we’d be free. If my love counted for more than words and warmth when it’s cold outside, we’d be happy. If my love could conquer everything, I know it would conquer my mistakes. If my love mattered anything at all.

I used to like to watch him work. I’d sit on the couch, drink in my hand, book in my lap, pretending to read but really watching him work. His shoulders hunched over slightly, his jacket casually unbuttoned, a tall glass by his side and the light of the lamp illuminating his papers, he’d work. I never asked what he was reading, I never cared about his reports, duty rosters, maintenance schedules and transfer requests. I didn’t need to know about them. And he never talked.

Now I watch him, shoulders hunched over more than before, his jacket unbuttoned and a cup in his hand, sitting down next to me, and suddenly I understand everything. This is who he is, this is who I never was, but would have liked to be, and there’s such a gap between what I am and what I could have been that I bite my lips to keep from screaming.

I used to tell him that if the world were right, he’d be running things, not Bill. I used to tell him that if things were the way they should be, he wouldn’t be on this frakking planet playing hide and seek with the Cylons. I used to tell him about how things could be if things were right.

Now I take the cup from his hands, and raise it to my lips. This is he, telling me how things should be if they were right. This is he, showing me that love cannot wash away sins. Love cannot conquer justice.

And I thank him for it.

Eternal life. Or, rather, eternal youth, for what would eternal life mean if I had to live it in an old and decrepit body?

When I was a child I used to watch my grandmother move about the house. She’d move slowly and silently, her bones creaked when she sat or rose from chairs, and her hands always shook when she handed me my glass of milk in the morning. Being young, I never thought that she might have once been young herself. I couldn’t imagine her being supple, fast, unwrinkled. I could not imagine her hands steady as she held mine each night while we prayed.

And, just as I could not see her young, regardless of how much I tried, I could not see myself growing old. When I was younger, almost still a child, I’d imagine that by the time I’ll be all grown up someone would invent a magic potion that would stop people from aging, and I would live forever, my skin smooth and hands steady for eternity. I could see myself at 50, just as perfect and beautiful as I had always been.

I look in the mirror now and the memory of my fancies makes me smile bitterly. There are fine wrinkles around my eyes now, lines around my mouth that get deeper with each year. My hands are still steady, my skin still fair, but soon I’ll look more like my grandmother than the young woman falling asleep each night dreaming of eternal life.

There’s no magic in the world, and there are no potions granting eternal youth. And perhaps that’s for the better. I still cannot imagine my grandmother’s hands feeling soft and steady in mine as we prayed.

“You can have this when you’re older,” is probably my favorite one.

When I was little, really little, four or perhaps five years old, I used to love to sneak into my mother’s room and try on her lipstick, her shoes, wear her string of pearls and tear around in her closet wrecking havoc. I didn’t do it because I was an unruly child, believe it or not, I was quite disciplined and neat, but it made me feel closer to her. I never did see her enough, not as much as a child should see her mother, at any rate, and, putting on her things, walking around in her high heeled shoes, gave me a sense of being near her that I never really had otherwise.

She hated it. I never asked her whether it was because I destroyed her make-up in the process, torn the heels of her shoes or got lipstick on her furs, but I knew she hated me doing it, she hated seeing me sneak into her room. She’d never yell at me, she’d never hurt or punish me for it though, she’d just take the lipstick from my dirty little hands, and put it back on the vanity telling me in a very serious, grown-up voice, that “I can have that when I’m older.”

I grew up waiting to be “older”. I grew up hoping that beyond whatever’s today, lies tomorrow, and tomorrow I’ll be older than today, and maybe, just maybe, I’ll be old enough to wear her lipstick and furs and strings of pearls. Waiting for tomorrow, bidding my time, became a priority.

She died when I was ten, and I never got around to wear her lipstick and furs. Later I found out that I can always be older, but never old enough to actually get anything at all. Life isn’t about waiting around, after all.

She’s really good at making promises. She looks you in the eyes, tears gathering, her lower lip trembling just a little, a stray lock of her golden hair falling down her forehead, and swears. She can swear to anything at all. She’ll swear she’ll love you forever, she’ll swear she’ll never cheat on you again, she’ll swear she’ll never leave you, and she’ll swear not to come between you and your duty. She can do all that, without flinching, convince you to take her back and convince you that this time she means it, then five minutes later break all her vows. She’s really good at making promises.

She’s really good at twisting you around her finger. She looks you in the eyes, her own blue eyes full of remorse, her hair perfect in the light of the morning sun, and says she’s sorry. She can find excuses for everything, but her strongest ones are always those you yourself provide for her. She’s sorry she didn’t love you enough, she’s sorry she cheated on you, she’s sorry she left you, and she’s sorry she interfered with your work. She can say all that, while slowly taking off her light summer dress, and you believe her, even if you know that five minutes later she’ll forget all about her remorse. She’s really good at apologizing.

She’s really good at bending your will to hers. She looks you in the eyes, her own narrowing with anger, her lips red and her cheeks flushed, and tells you you’re worthless. She can find a way to interfere in your work even if she can barely remember the proper ranks, and you let her, because you know she’ll make you do things you wouldn’t dare do otherwise. She’ll tell you you’re a coward, she’ll tell you you’re a yes-man, and, most often, she won’t tell you anything at all, just stare at you like that, half empty glass in her hand. That’s when she’s most effective. She’s really good at making you do as she wishes.

You watch her now, swearing, saying she’s sorry, bending you to her will, and you believe all of it. You believe it not because you know it to be true, but because you know it to be true to her, in this moment, as she utters the words. The knowledge that she’ll break every promise she makes matters little in the light of the fact that she means what she says the moment she says it, and you find it hard to reject her.

“Start over?”

“Start over…”

Yes. That would be the answer to your first question. And that’s what I like to let them think, would be the answer to the second.

You’re laughing now, aren’t you? But I’m telling the truth, honestly. It’s a game after all, why should I lie about games. I’m good at them, I don’t need to lie. Or cheat, for that matter. And they come easy. Some things really come easy once you get the hang of them.

The hard part, just as honestly, is making them think they’re the ones seducing you. There are tricks to make men fall for you: you flip your hair, you smile – the most obvious ones, of course – you hold yourself up straight or let yourself fall, for that matter. They have to feel you’re trying to get to them, of course they do, but at the same time, they can’t know you don’t actually want them for the reasons they think you want them for. Does that make any sense? Are you following me? I hope you are, because I’m not going to repeat this again. I’m not even sure it makes much sense when put like that, into words.

But, regardless… That’s how you seduce them, by letting yourself be seduced. By letting them think they decide, when, in fact, you’re at least five steps ahead of them. And you gotta be; you just gotta be, if you want to get anywhere at all in this life.

You cannot be seduced unless you yourself seduce. And you cannot seduce anyone who doesn’t want to be seduced in the first place. As easy as that.

I swallow hard. I hate seeing him like this, but this time around it isn’t my fault.

"I'm not cut out for this. I never was. Me and Bill, side by side, that was the deal. It was never supposed to be me alone,” he says and I raise the glass to my lips. There’s something in his voice I can’t accept.

"Don't talk like that Saul. This is your moment. Like it or not, you're in command, so you better deal with it."

The words fly out of my mouth and I realize I sound kinder than I feel, for I’d hit him if I could. I’d slap him until he stopped feeling sorry for himself, until he stopped being so afraid of living outside Bill Adama’s shadow. He’s dying, yet, there he is, between us, the way he’s always been between us.

"I don't want to deal with it. I do not want to command.”

He raises his voice, and it hurts. If I knew he doesn’t mean it, it’d hurt less, but I know he means it and that kills me. It’s for us that I want him to be strong, it’s for us that I push him, not for myself alone. I want the good life, I won’t deny that, but I want him by my side, always. I want him to be strong, through himself, not through me, but if I have to push him, I will.

"I never told you to send troops out to that ship,"

"No, you didn't tell me to send troops anywhere. You just manipulate. You always do. You put the knife in, and you twist it."

"Oh, right you're going to blame me for your own inadequacy? You are so frakking passive that if I didn't push you, you would never get your head out of that frakking bottle and do anything."

I scream at him, an outburst I do not regret. He deserves to know I refuse to accept his blame. He deserves to know that he cannot lay this on me simply because he doesn’t want the command and refuses responsibility, because he’s afraid. Of Bill, no less. Of what Bill will think. Of what Bill will say. Always of Bill.

"I warned you. I'm telling you."

You’re telling me what? That you have no backbone? That if it weren’t for me you’d never do anything but grovel at Bill’s feet and wait for the bones he throws you? That you feel better living in his shadow than by my side? That if you had to pick between the two of us you’d pick him? I don’t want to hear that. And I don’t care, because, you see, just as you’d do anything for Bill, I’d do anything for you. You don’t see it, you think I’m shallow and manipulative and selfish, but it doesn’t matter what you think. What you threaten to tell me. I’d do anything for you, anything at all, and that’s what makes me strong.

“I love you so much."

"Shut up, Ellen."

OOC: This post is very out of character, but I felt the need write it, and since I don't have a personal journal, I've hijacked Ellen's for a little while. She said she doesn't mind. :) daybreak777 started this, asta77 continued it, and I think everyone should participate!

( Why Annie Loves Laura Roslin )

My eyes are closed and I can’t really see him, but I know he’s in the room, watching me. I know how to breathe so he’ll think me asleep, unconscious, vulnerable even, but I’m neither. I know he’ll say things if he thinks I can’t hear him. He’s never been very good at saying anything to my face, but he’ll talk if he’s convinced I can’t hear him. He’ll ask the crew things, hoping to learn something that might put me in a bad light, but this time around he’ll come up short. Not because I haven’t done anything, but because I haven’t done it here.

I want to ask him about Saul, but asking him would mean giving up my power over him, and I can’t do that just now. I’ve known him to be alive, of course, but I’d like to ask how he’s holding up, whether he misses me at all, if he mentioned my name after the attack. I realize I’ll find out, eventually, but curiosity was always one of my sins. One of many.

In a way I think I’m glad he and Bill are together. There are reasons I don’t like Bill very much, there are things I wish I could tell him but I won’t, for Saul’s sake, but at the same time I am aware, so painfully aware, that Bill has been taking care of Saul, that I find myself feeling grateful. Even, cordial. For whatever that’s worth, considering I’m pretending I can’t hear him close the door as he leaves my cabin.

Bill and I have never gotten along. We probably never will, either, for when it comes to taking sides, Saul will probably take his over mine and I can’t abide it. But I think I can trust him. I think I can trust him to get me where I need to be right now. And to be honest. Always, brutally honest in his dislike of me. He can’t say it, he’s too afraid of words, but can’t hide it either. Maybe, in the end, Bill and I can reach a truce of some sort.

For Saul’s sake. Of course.

She's sitting quietly, watching him over her shoulder, her hair falling in her eyes. She hasn't bothered to comb it for days, and it shows. She hasn't bothered with a great many things for quite a while now, and that shows too.

Anders is whispering to him. Anders is yelling at him. Anders is telling him that if he won't do it, he will. She doesn't hear a word, not really, but she knows what's being told, how her fate is being decided. As he turns toward her with pain etched in his features, she knows. And doesn't mind. Not much, anyway. Not as much as she had tought she'd mind.

Only, what will he do without her? How will he manage? What would happen to his soul? If she only knew. If she could only knew for sure that he'd be all right one day. Not today, not after he does what he must do, but one day. She closes her eyes and prays in spite of her disbelief. The gods don't exist, they can't, for they wouldn't have allowed such a horror to be unleashed upon them all, but if there's a chance that they do, however small, they must take care of him and make up for the lack of interest they've show until now.

Hell taker her own soul. Hell swallow her and never let her surface again. She diserves it, for sinning for love is a sin nevertheless, but she prays he'll be safe. Will he be safe? But how could he be?

She takes the cup from his hand, so that he wouldn't have to bear the burdain of pushing it into her hand himself, then raises it to her lips.

If she could only know for sure...

You watch him silently as he gropes about the room, muttering to himself. A bitter smile you keep trying to chase away forms again and again on your lips, and after a while you decide maybe it's fitting, and leave it to adorn your face. He can't see it anyway.

You've stopped taunting him a long time ago. It was fun, for a while, to move the pictures about, maybe even his chair, sleep in his bed - formerly yours - and leave your perfume lingering everywhere on the sheets and the pillows, whisper in his ear after he's had a few drinks, but you got bored pretty soon of seeing him so miserable. You amused yourself seeing his distress, his horror, as he couldn't find his things where he'd put them, or would walk around calling your name. But as time passed by, it got old. And, you dare to admit yourself, you've forgiven him. Maybe even understood his motives.

So now you watch him, amused, as he touches the walls, whispers, listens for the sounds lost among the noise of vacuum and machinery. He can hear it now, he knows it to be there. You wait for the moment of recognition, you wait for him to realize what he surely must know, what he must have known all along to be true.

Welcome to the madness, Number Four...

His uniform is full of blood and you watch in horror as he’s unbuttoning and throwing the jacket aside. You finally find your voice to ask what’s going on, to ask whether he’s all right, but he’s already half undressed by the time your brain processes the information.

It’s horrible. It’s terrible. It’s terrifying and unsettling. Yet, there it is, the oportunity you’ve been waiting for. Somewhere, amidst the chaos, you realize that this is your chance. His chance. You’d smile, this is too perfectly twisted, but you know he doesn’t think it funny. Nor does he see what you see. How could he? He never did, that’s why he had you.

You tell him later, much later, that this is his chance, but he pushes you away. You don’t want Bill Adama to die, you don’t want the Fleet to plunge into chaos, but it can happen, it might happen, it probably will happen, and you don’t understand why he refuses to grasp at the opportunity to show them all what he’s really made of. What you know him to be made of.

Men are stupid, you repeat to yourself, and wonder why can’t it be you in his stead, to show them how things need to be done. He can’t be weak, yet he acts like he is. He isn’t himself, he’s still Bill’s man, even with the Old Man lying on his death-bed. This wouldn’t have happened had Bill been here. This wouldn’t have happened had Bill not been shot. This wouldn’t have gone down the way it has if Bill would at least be awake. He keeps telling you that, and you want to slap him, you want to hit him until he wakes and sees the world for what it is.

It isn’t so much for you personally, you realize as you sit in the dark room, drink in hand, your legs curled up under you, one strap of the dress you halfway wear sliding slowly down your shoulder. This is all for the both of you. This needs to be done so that people will respect him. This needs to be done so that people will recognize his value. This needs to be done so he steps out of Bill Adama’s shadow.

You’ve grown tired to live under it. Why hasn’t Saul?

I scream for what feels like hours, but no one can hear me. I scream until I feel my voice give away. I scream in fear, I scream in anger, I scream in hatred and I scream in pain. I want to scream until I wake up from this nightmare, I want to scream until I feel your hands on my shoulders, shaking me awake and holding me tight whispering everything is going to be all right.

They took you in the middle of the night. They walked into our poor excuse of a house and dragged you out of bed. They dragged you out in the cold wearing nothing but a faded gray t-shirt and pants, still barefoot. I started screaming when I saw them, and they hit me. I clang to you, and they hit me again. Not the way you hit a human being, with anger or love, annoyance or even hate, but with an indifference that hurt more than the horrible bruise the metallic hand meeting the soft skin of my cheek and temple had left. I am nothing. You are nothing. We are nothing to them.

I scream to convince myself I still have a voice, I am still alive. I scream until I lose even the little sense of time I had. I want to scream until you come back, but I know it would mean my death.

Days later, as I put on my clothes and make-up in the morning, I realize I still haven’t stopped screaming.

Maybe I never will.

Life isn’t a game, it’s anything but a game, but for a while there I thought I had it beat! Then it came back with a vengeance, the way it always does just when you think you’ve got it all figured out.

I suppose I should have known. I suppose I could have lied to him instead of lying to Saul. I suppose I could have misled him. There are a million possible scenarios running through my head right now, things I could have done, could have said, options I didn’t consider, lies I didn’t tell, and lies I told.

If I beg now, if I plead for his forgiveness, I know I’ve lost. He’ll spare me, and condemn himself, and then I’ve lost. I’ll accept his judgement, I’ll do what he says, I’ll answer for what I’ve done. If it means my life, well, then so be it. Whatever I’ve done for the love of my husband, it’s only fitting he should decide what my fate should be.

I’ve won. I saved him. And I’ve lost, for I’ve saved him for them, for the Fleet, and not for myself. I have no place in his future. I have no future.

Winning is not always all that it’s made out to be.