Fic: Extract of Hope (S1, PG)

[KNS]

Extract of Hope
by KNS (strickland@frontier.net)

Disclaimer: Not mine, not mine, I like them a lot, but they're not mine.

Notes: Season 1, Episodes 1-6. Beware of spoilers. Rated PG.

. . .We are practicing for heaven,
and this is how you get there,
the ladder built rung by rung
with the truth of whatever happens.
~ Julia Levine "My Gemini"


*
The Secretary of Education will now be addressed as Madam President.
Congratulations, Laura Roslin.

*

There is no day or night, only 33 minute slices of hell. She's a politician,
the top politician; people are watching her. She tries to smile as often as
she can, tries to stay calm at all times. She's just as tired as everyone else, just as edgy, just as ready to crawl into a corner and cry herself to sleep.

On the positive side, it doesn't look like the cancer will kill her.

*

Next crisis, please.

*

The population numbers go down, then they go up. She erases the white board,
writes a new figure, erases the white board, writes a new figure. She hates
the gods-damned white board, would tear it from the wall and stomp on it until it littered the deck like fresh snow - but that wouldn't change the figures, and white boards are hard to come by.

The civilian ship gets left behind. It reappears. She orders it to be
destroyed, and it's gone for good this time. Time to visit the white board again.

Later she's told that a baby has been born. Is she supposed to laugh or cry? A
baby born into this hell. A baby born despite this hell.

She hates the gods-damned white board.

*

If Adama's comfortable, maybe he'll be easier to deal with.

*

Adama's favorite phrase seems to be, "It's a military decision." Every time he
feels threatened, he says it like a mantra. It works the first few times, but
like any constant it quickly loses its power. He's patient, but she's more
patient. She has to be.

When the imposing, self-assured commander gives her the book, she knows a moment of pure fear, because she can feel the tears well up in her eyes and she knows she's about to make a very big mistake.

He knows, too, and quickly backs away, earning both her respect and gratitude.
She won't forget. And neither will he.

*

Some problems are more fluid than others.

*

Adama junior is a far cry from his father. Oh, they carry themselves in the
same way, confident and still, and they both have the same patient, keen eyes
but there is a kindness to the son that the father has lost or buried so deeply
that it seems lost. Captain Apollo smiles more, laughs more, has less to hide.

He is very young.

She likes him quite a lot. When she looks at him, she sees hope for the future,
the promise of continued life for humanity. And because lately hope is so
desperately hard to find, she wants to keep him near. He will be her bridge to
the distant commander, who is someone she trusts by necessity but does not
necessarily understand.

When the young god is taken prisoner, she is furiously angry, for a hundred
reasons. There are so few humans left - if they start fighting internally,
they'll never survive. Might as well call the cylons and wait to be pickedup.
And while they consider exterminating themselves, suicide of an entire race,
the water is still running out.

Sometimes she feels like she's taking part in some sort of theatrical
production. Complete with professional actors and a hopeless plot, she'd like
to switch roles, have fewer lines, but her understudy's been murdered and the
show must go on, so she keeps acting, keeps playing her part, and fabricates
the lines she forgot to memorize.

When the young god returns to her, she wants to laugh and cry and dance him in a circle, none of which are appropriate actions for a president and her advisor.
So she only smiles, but later gives him the secret that is all she seems to own
nowadays, the only thing that is truly hers.

"I feel that knowledge of my illness will erode hope," she tells him. She feels
that way because she knows it's true.

*

Are you familiar with kamala extract?

*

Fate must take perverse pleasure in leaving her with this smart-mouthed doctor.
Prayer, indeed. Would prayer bring back all those killed by the cylons? Would
it fill the storage bays with the tons of food necessary to keep the last of
humanity from starvation? Would it provide a soft square of ground and a blue
sky for her to see just one more time?

The calloused doctor shreds the thin shroud of hope she's wrapped herself in:
even if the extract might work, is there any available, let alone enough for
treatment? By a show of hands, please indicate who thought to bring kamala
extract as they were fleeing for their lives.

"If I were you, I'd seriously consider prayer," the doctor tells her somberly,
as if she might have overlooked the idea before.

She merely looks at him. If she were inclined towards prayer, she wouldn't pray
for enough extract, she'd pray for the chance to again feel a warm summer sun.

*

Under normal circumstances, it would just be sad. . .

*

Standing before father and son, she can see how grief and fear have stripped
them of their differences. They watch her with weary, wary eyes, sure that she
has come to order them away from their sister/daughter. And they are right.

"It's a military decision," Adama says, a plea this time. He's wrong and knows
it, can't ask for understanding with anything except his eyes.

She can't afford sympathy - it's far too expensive, priced against humanity's
survival. But she wonders, will she afford them no leeway because none is
afforded to her? So she does what she can, leaves the final decision to them,
trusting them to make the right choice. And they do.

She is there when Apollo whoops with delight at Starbuck's return. She is there
when the crew erupts into shouts and applause, and she sees how Adama quickly runs his hand across his eyes when he thinks no one is watching.

Before leaving the command center, she manages to brush past Commander Adama and say, "I hope Lieutenant Thrace knows how much she means to you." Adama only looks at her, probably the same way she looked at the doctor who suggested prayer.

Suitably chastened, she turns away.

*

I do not want a witch hunt. . .

*

The people are outraged, some because they weren't told sooner, some because
they were told at all. Humanity might be on the brink of extinction, but
politics haven't changed.

To the ones who scream Why, why, why did you keep this from us? she wants to say dryly, Because I thought you might panic. To the ones who howl, Why tell us at all? she wants to answer, Because the threats you can't see are just as deadly
as the ones you can. Instead she stands before them and says calmly, "Next
question, please."

Adama doesn't want to believe her, holds to his belief that as long as
everything about the investigation is honest and open, things will stay clean.
She doesn't gloat when he calls to say he was wrong, doesn't say I-told-you-so
or I-knew-this-would-happen. She is magnanimous, says she knows he did his
best and at least one person has been held responsible for his actions. What
else can she say? She needs Adama and he needs her. They're playing parental
roles to an entire race, and neither one wants to run a single parent family.


And at the end of the day when she finds herself again before a mass of
questioning people, she will project the confidence she doesn't feel and say
calmly, "Now I'll take your questions."

She will not ask them, Will you take mine?

She is a politician, the top politician; people are watching her. She smiles
when she can.

Sometimes hope is found simply in surviving another day.

*