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It's been three weeks since the last episode, and Starbuck is going full-on Captain Kurtz. Her Demetrius crew -- Seelix, Gaeta, Anders, the Fightin' Agathons, and Pilot Pike -- are pretty worried, and annoyed, both with good reason. Kara stays locked up all day going through star charts, painting crazy murals, dissociating all Buffy Summers-style and frakking Sam in a less-than-loving way, while accidentally convincing him that they are Cylon soulmates like Gaius did Tory last week.
Tom Zarek gives Lee Adama a classified memo detailing President Roslin's latest attempt to go Homeland Security on everybody's ass. He brings it up in front of the press and Quorum, causing major political and PR issues. The Admiral and Laura work out their stuff from last week over a nice pulp novel, but she's still clearly pissed about Kara and, like, everything.
Boomer's new lover Cavil -- yeah -- resurrects after Natalie's little massacre last week, and agrees to bring back the Threes, which is obviously a lie. He lures the DEMAND TRUTH Basestars into territory with no Resurrection Ship nearby, meaning the gorgeous Basestar-on-Basestar battle that commences is for all the marbles. Meanwhile, Natalie's realizing that giving Centurions free will is all fine and good, but you better tip their chrome asses pretty good come Christmastime if you're making them do scut work. I think she's close to noticing they have guns for hands, but it seems unlikely she'll notice in time.
And then the biggie. Cally, Prozac'd out to here, sees Tory pulling more of her existential crisis shit on Chief at Joe's Bar, assumes they're having an affair, spies on a Final Four meeting, goes nuts, finally beats the shit out of Chief, and heads directly to the nearest airlock to kill both herself and her child. Tory talks her down long enough to get Nicky away from her, then ... spaces her ass, in one of the darkest, scariest, most shocking sequences in the show's history. We should have expected awesomeness from Michaels Taylor and Nankin, my personal favorite writer and director on the show, but that was just beyond. WTG and WTF, BSG.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Y TORY READ KANT
(In which certain Fears about Boomer become incontrovertible, and Tory Foster continues to make a World of Sense.)
Brother Cavil hurls himself, naked, from the pod and onto the floor. He is slick and white. Cavil has always hated resurrection. That moment between life and death, that moment when God reveals His face, is nothing but pain for model One; every time he sees that light, and hears that singing, is harder for him. It hurts.
Cavil is wrapped in towels by Cavil, who calls him Brother; tenderly; Boomer tends to him upon the floor. Cavil explains to Cavil that he was shot by Centurions, "pure insanity," at the behest of Natalie. "The Sixes have lost their minds," Cavil explains to Cavil. "They have no idea of the threat that they've unleashed." Cavil learns that all the Ones, Fours, and Fives on the ships controlled by Natalie's group have been killed. He calls it "ethnic cleansing." Boomer explains the futility of her tiebreaker last week: "The whole Fleet's split right down the middle." Cavil jokes, like Laura, like Laura might secretly joke: "That'll teach me not to trust in democracy." Boomer smiles and kisses him, still naked as he is, newborn, slick with the waters of resurrection.
The pills and exhaustion are lights, upon the wall, from a magic lantern. Moons and stars whirl in a darkened room, as Cally sleeps fitfully, wakes and remembers, drowses in hell, wakes to Nicky's cries. Who knows how long she waits there, in the silence before the screaming starts again. She remembers their last fight, Galen offering lies, running off to invented emergencies and midnight calls to the deck, and plays with her food without eating, and takes more pills. She comforts Nicky when he is awake, to still his cries, and in between she waits, squatting in the dark, and prays for sleep. She counts the moments in the dark and the lights whirl around her in the darkness, and when she can't wait any longer, knowing what they'll say, she calls down to the hangar deck, to the emergency. He isn't there. Possibilities whirl in the darkness. He settled for her, this dirty girl, because she bribed him to do so. After all his fears came true and he hurt her, she demanded this life, his child, and was rewarded with her dreams, come true. And she knew who she was: Galen's girl.
Before she was Galen's girl, the world made sense: she was working out her time, paying for dental college with a term of service. Small plans for a small girl. And she met Galen, and fell in love, and he never noticed her. And then the world ended, and nothing made sense anymore. The world fell apart, in her hands. And all she had was love. And when he loved her back, even in the dirt of New Caprica, things made sense again. And now she has everything she can remember wanting, and it's gone sick and sour. At least with the attacks the world ended quickly.
But the stars and moon are whirling on the darkened walls, thrown from a magic lantern, and they are telling her he's finally awakened, put together the mechanism of their love and its iniquity, solved the mystery like any good mechanic. Chief Galen Tyrol, unable to put her back together, unable to love her as she always loved him. Galen in his grief and guilt, settling for her, making a home on New Caprica. Settling for settlement, in the dirt with a dirty girl. It was only a matter of time, she thinks, and then shakes herself, a little bit. These are just the dirty thoughts, the darkness coming round again like whirling moon and stars: she's just being silly, and this is a lie, and he really does love her. Doesn't he? She's given him everything to make him love her. She killed for him, to help clean him up again: she wiped the toaster off his skin, and paid thirty days in the brig for it. She put herself between him and the darkness, and her jaw eventually reset, and on New Caprica she was so proud.
Cally climbs the shadowed walls and searches for bottles, but the bottles are empty and the pills are all gone. And possibility whirls around again: if he's going places and lying about those places, it stands to reason he's meeting somebody. Ever since the Nebula he's wandered the corridors and secret places, hearing a strange song she can't hear. There's not a pill for that. And in his pockets, there's a napkin, four-cornered, and it says Joe's Bar. Marriage is the reason we build bars, and sometimes it's the method.
In Joe's Bar, Chief is looking rough as hell, and complaining to Tory: Before the song across the water, he knew who he was. "Galen Tyrol, Crew Chief, husband, father." Cally helped keep them in place, before the song. But now he doesn't recognize his face in the mirror, so how can he know where or what he is? Tory knows how much Cally means to him, how he is rooted in her. After Boomer died, when he felt the toaster all over him, inside him, sickening, and it grew like a cancer until he nearly died, it was Cally that put him back together, like a mechanic. Whose grace in pain, whose forgiveness was like the memory of something we've all forgotten. Imagine the eyes of something infinite and loving, that could forgive you anything. Not like a hound, not like a pet, but something brilliant, that saw all your angles at once, the dark and bright sides, all the facets, and loved you anyway: that is the gaze of love, and it keeps you in place. But now she doesn't see the truth anymore, because there's something worse inside him, and so her gaze means nothing.
And there's Tory, who knows about that love, and knows that it is missing. Who understands that nothing means anything anymore, because all the rules are gone away. The Exodus was nothing compared to this. But Tory's interesting, because she's always lived by rules, absolute and unchanging. There is a list for Tory that has a few things on it: Laura Roslin, Hera, and now the Four. When Laura looked to lose the election, Tory stole the election. When she lost Hera during the Second Exodus, it nearly killed her. Tory always has a list. And what the song has taught her is that the list is all that matters, and there's nothing on the list. The world is ending. Nothing else matters.
"You know, I never really liked ambrosia before. But now. It's like I'm being flooded with new sensations and new feelings. Maybe you are too." There's a question in her eyes, a flirtation. Anders was married to a dead woman when they made love: matrimony is not on the list. On the list of things that feel good, sex and drugs are always on the top of the list. Chief stares at her, wondering what she's up to, as she caresses his elbow. "In some ways, I don't hate this. Feeling new. Feeling open to things. To change..." She's only playing. When the world falls apart, into constituent blocks and pieces, you can play around. Move this over here, try this new thing. The Gods didn't save her, so she let Gaius Baltar add God to the list. "I don't do well with change," the Chief says firmly, the last funny thing that's going to happen in this episode. He answers all her questions at once.
But the question still remains, because Tory just started making sense, to yours truly. There comes a moment, I think, for most people, in which we realize a very important fact: There is nobody watching. There are crimes you don't need to do, but there are no crimes that can ever happen inside your head: that's yours, to do with what you like. In high school, what was on the list? Sex and drugs feel good. In the backstory I've always imagined, Tory didn't have a hell of a lot of fun in high school. She's got the position and the pedigree to suggest that. But no matter when it happens, defining the limits of what is acceptable becomes an end in itself, for a time. You decide who you would be, and then create that in your actions, but there's no list. If nothing is true, then everything is permitted.
Eventually, if you're smart and if you're lucky, you put together a list that looks something like everybody else's list; Kant called it the Kingdom of Ends, in which everybody acted in accordance with, basically, the Golden Rule. In which all people are treated as Ends in themselves -- rather than Means to an end -- by everybody else. In which everyone is both Sovereign and Subject at once. But if you live for the list, and then find out that the list never existed, you can be whatever you like. You can be the woman you choose to be, and you can take your time deciding who that is. You have infinite time to play.
Cally watches them, talking, sees the playfulness in Tory's eyes, and as the stars and moons whirl about her, and Nicky screaming, and Tory's hand unmoving from Chief's elbow, she decides that yes: she is white-trash tacky enough to drag a baby into a bar and start screaming. Luckily, she's on drugs and she's ninety percent right about all of it (and Clyne's acting her ass off besides), or I'd be laughing and pointing right about now. ["Is it okay if I persist in laughing and pointing? And congratulate Cally for finally Going There?" -- Joe R] She hastens to their table, but can't even get out a full-throated shout before she starts vomiting. On the floor of a bar with a baby in her arms, and everybody watching. To be proven right, to know that your husband is cheating on you, that you're just the dirty girl after all, and then to vomit on the floor, in front of everybody. I mean, my God. She takes off running, and he shouts and stares after her, and back at the table, Tory drinks her drink and feels some more sensations or whatever.
THE ONLY POSSIBLE ARGUMENT IN SUPPORT OF A DEMONSTRATION OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
(In which the Admiral and the President share strength, but All is still not Well.)
39, 676 souls in the Fleet, for now. In the sickbay, Cottle hooks up Laura's IV and promises that her nausea should subside in about an hour. She reads for a sec, then leans head back, grunting softly to herself. This isn't going to be one of those times. She takes her glasses off, and settles into the sickening. It starts like it always does, with the body. All we are, all that we think we are, all that we are certain about is taken away from us. After a moment Bill arrives, and sits down without comment.
Love & Bullets, by Nick Taylo. Chapter One.
"It started like it always did, with a body. This one was in the river. I could tell she had once been beautiful, but this, a bullet and fast current had taken away from her. All we are, all that we think we are, all that we are certain about is taken away from us. When you've worked the streets and seen what I've seen, you become more and more convinced of it every day. Caprica City had been my teacher, my mistress. From the moment I open my eyes, she's in my blood, like cheap wine."
Laura moans and begins to weep, under the weight of it, holding onto the words, clasping hands over her abdomen, almost in prayer. Books, for them, have always been like the lost language of flowers. The Admiral never does anything, especially speak, without reason. From the moment he opens his eyes, she's in his blood. Bitter and sweet.
"Bitter and sweet, tinged with regret. I'll never be free of her, nor do I want to be."
Nobody's going anywhere. He finally looks over at her, apology in his eyes, and though she doesn't meet them, she smiles in his direction, with tears in her eyes. This moment is sweet, but it is tinged with regret: she can forgive, but not everything.
"For she is what I am. All that is, should always be."
Laura takes this promise and these words and this strength back to Colonial One, and puts on her face. She stands, never wavering, never letting them see her sweat. At her side are Tory and Zarek, watching Lee Adama take his place in the Quorum.
"I am grateful and consistently inspired by the compassionate and forthright leadership of President Roslin. By the wisdom of my father, whom some of you may know..." There is polite laughter from the assembled press and representatives. Laura doesn't take her eyes off him, glinting angrily; Tom doesn't look away from him either. "And by the support and advice of my valued friends. Some of whom, you may be shocked to hear, are not Capricans. And so I am honored to accept this appointment to the Quorum, in the hope that I can continue Delegate Cowen's courageous work on behalf of the people of Caprica and the Fleet. Thank you." The press corps goes nuts, flashbulbs sing out. Laura smiles hugely, from behind her face, and when Lee calls on the first reporter, it's Roslin he addresses.
"Madam President, by confirming Mr. Adama's nomination, does this mean you don't have any hard feelings about his role in the Baltar Trial?" Lee looks to her, so young for a moment, wanting desperately to hear her answer and to be forgiven. She tenderly touches Lee's arm, and thanks him with a smile. It is a lie. "Mr. Adama took on a cause he felt was important, and I fully trust he will continue to bring the same passion and clear-mindedness in representing his constituents."
The question concerns the Demetrius, the sewage recycling freighter that jumped away three weeks ago. With nearly no snarl at all, Laura redirects this question to the Admiral, who rises from the ranks of reporters.
"The Demetrius is on a military mission," he says. And to the rumor that Kara Thrace is in charge of that mission, he will not comment. As the reporters scrum further, Tory whispers to the President, and Roslin speaks to them again. "I'm gonna have to cut this short. I will see you all very soon at the Quorum Q&A. Thank you very much." There is scattered applause, and the President retires to her offices.
"Frankly," Laura spits, "I'm surprised it took them this long to come after us about the Demetrius." Adama, slightly afraid, hopes that it will blow over soon, and she snorts at this. "I'm gonna be covering for you for a long time on this." Like a boy, with hands behind his back, afraid of her fragility and more, her strength, he speaks quietly. He tries to tell her the story of his heart, and why he defied her, and to get her to look into his eyes again. "I wanted to give Kara a chance. I wanted to give myself a chance to believe in her." Laura knows damn well what he means, that he was trying to split the difference, to combine his love and respect for his President with his love and wonder for a daughter returned, but she will not give it to him yet. Disgustedly, theatrically, she coughs out an "Apparently" before turning back to her work. She sits, and he stands, searching out her eyes, but she will not give them to him. This is her cruelest revenge; he has no way of knowing it's also the price he's going to pay. His heart breaks a little, rips just a bit along one edge, and he exits.
UNIVERSAL NATURAL HISTORY & THEORY OF HEAVEN
(In which we find much Unrest among the Crew of a Skybound Submarine.)
Day 22 of the Demetrius mission, summed up in a chyron as simply: "Find Earth." Kara reads her star charts, taps pens against teeth, opens and closes and zooms in onscreen, draws and calibrates and measures. A compass, drawing circles and defining areas. Folders and files. pencils. A headache. She sees the gas giant, three stars in a belt; the comet of her visions burning across the sky. Her hands are shaky, trying to make the compass work. As she's passing a tiny ship along a piece of sky, Gaeta enters. Her face is dripping sweat and you can never really catch it all within the frame. She is alien and strange. Captain Thrace, She Dead. "I've made a decision."
In the common room on the Demetrius, everybody's bitching. Seelix is there, with her adorable new haircut, and Pike's there reading NYMPH. "Astronomic cluster? Sounds more like a clusterfrak," Seelix spits, and Helo tells them to stop bitching. Seelix apologizes, but suggests it can't have escaped his notice that they're practically flying around in circles. Gaeta enters, angry, and Athena asks him the latest. They'll be reversing course, returning to sector seven. Athena is exhausted and frustrated as everybody else: It's the tenth course correction, and again for no reason Kara can say. The Promised Land is an art, not a science, but you can't tell pilots that. Even Helo was confused when she told him it wasn't course vectors and nav fixes.
"I'm telling you guys," says Pike -- ever the redshirt, not seen since New Caprica -- "This thing is a setup anyway. I mean, you think that the old man just gave her the ship and then cut her loose? I guarantee you Galactica's dogging our every move, and they're just waiting to jump in as soon as she shows her true colors." Anders tells him to shut it, and Pike fronts on him, calling him "Rook." Helo once again tells them to cram it, just as Kara's voice is ringing out across the sub like a ghost. "Helo, I need to talk to you. Now!"
Helo goes to meet with her, and as Pike asks for odds on yet another course correction, Anders follows. He stares up at her, backlit, through the grating on the floor. The sickly amber light makes a halo around her; you can't catch her face. He begs her to listen, asks if there's anything she can tell them, to settle their stomachs. Any new data. He boxes her in with his need; pokes at her fear. Finally, purpose, finally a thing she can do that nobody else can do, finally redemption, and all they can do is lock her and chain her for it, and now they're asking her over and over again: "What if you fail?" The question she keeps asking herself, chained and boxed and caged by it. The world ended when she died, and now her list is very small, and every worried and every angry question carries the threat that her list is full of lies. "You know everything you need to know, ensign. So stow the questions and do your job." Helo joins her on the upper deck, where she is hidden and alien and strange, and she gives him new jump coordinates, and down in the common room, everybody stares at everybody else. Anders slams a locker on it.
DREAMS OF A SPIRIT SEER/ESSAY ON THE ILLNESS OF THE HEAD
(In which old Perspectives, entering their Obsolescence, are threatened for the last time.)
Cally packs Nicky's stuff for the day, not looking at Chief, ignoring yesterday and all the days beforehand. Chief sits at the table near the baby, begging her to listen to the truth. Begging her to listen to part of the truth. "I'm telling you again right now. I am not having an affair. I went out for a drink. I ran into Tory. We started talking." Cally shakes bottles, grabs toys for the baby, won't look at him. He searches for her eyes, but she won't give them to him. "You're gonna have to drop Nicky off. I have a doctor's appointment. Can you tell them not to feed him any of that algae mash? I think he's allergic." One thing she's never done is ignore him like this. Even on the levels it was sad, he could at least depend on her gaze, on her love rooting him somewhere away from nightmare. He has never needed his wife more than at this moment, and she doesn't know, and she can't know. He is begging, and it sounds like lies. He even slams a fist upon the table, scaring the baby, hoping to shock a glance out of her. But she's gone cold, having discovered her new power. "Just remember about the algae." She leaves, and Nicky cries, afraid, and the Chief reaches for him and looks at the hatch she slammed behind her, and apologizes, again and again, in the softest voice.
A Centurion wipes the Basestar wall with a bloody cloth as Cavil enters. "I see you're still cleaning up your mess," he says jovially, resurrection sickness almost hidden. Natalie wonders if perhaps it's not really their mess, and Cavil jokes that this explains why none of her people are helping the Centurions with their work. He sits, and grins at her. "Really, Six, if you had wanted some room to spread out, you could've just asked." Natalie is unamused. "Is there anything that isn't fodder for a joke with you? Or is that really how you see our very existence, as some sort of nihilistic punch line?" Not a bad take on Cavil's processes, actually. He laughs, loving her words. "I like that. But quite honestly, I'm feeling very serious." He really does look sick as hell. "Getting riddled with bullets affects me that way." Natalie offers with one lovely brow to serve up another round, and he takes the blame on himself, stunning the Eights at the table. "You had legitimate concerns, but I refused to hear them. But now I'm listening. So tell me, what's to be done to stop all this and let us get back together?" The Eights demand that he stop lobotomizing the Raiders, and he agrees. Emboldened, Natalie tells him to unbox the Threes.
Cavil pauses. "Resurrect her entire line? Don't forget, Six, it was D'Anna's messianic quest for secrets better left alone that started us down this divisive path in the first place." Natalie agrees, but says that for all his talk about "restoring unity," he could give thought to restoring the Cylons' greater unity, and unite all twelve models once and for all. He's clearly not feeling it, but promises to make their case. Imperiously, she orders the Centurions to escort him from the ship, and for once they don't move. "Please," she adds, with the quietest trepidation in her voice. They step forward and Cavil stands; she won't look away from him or back down, but she's worried. "It's a good thing you remembered the magic word," he grins. "You're going to find you opened a bigger can of worms than you realize." He leaves, with a Centurion behind him, and the cleaning beast continues at its labor, snapping its head suddenly toward the screen.
Lee Adama sits down in his new rightful place, as the Quorum Representative for Caprica, and thinks about the future, and worries at the Laura issue. Tom stands at the door to the conference room, and speaks. "Inspiring, isn't it? A government of the people, for the people, and answerable to the people. At least that's the idea. I heard you tried to see her." He enters, and Lee nods. "I had some bills I wanted to discuss, projects Delegate Cowan was pushing before she died. But they told me she wasn't in." She was, of course, just not for Lee. "By standing up for Baltar, you crossed the line with her. And Laura Roslin is not the type to forgive and forget." Lee protests: she forgave Tom Zarek his multitude of sins, made him VP. And Tom just smiles. "To keep me on the sidelines. Same way she'll try to sideline you." Then what was the point of Zarek's nomination? "Because you did stand up for Baltar. And you put Roslin on the stand to do it. You weren't afraid to ask some hard questions and to demand some honest answers." Lee assures Zarek, one-time terrorist, one-time Delegate from Sagittaron, that he won't be reprising his performance at the trial. But that's not Zarek's aim, and for all his talk and trouble he is still on Laura's side.
"It's amazing the things you start to notice when you're on the sidelines. How every decision that Laura and your father make gets stamped CLASSIFIED. Or how her directives are starting to read like decrees, yet still get enacted without so much as a debate." Lee hauls out his briefcase and starts going through papers, distracting himself with stage business. This is the Lampkin part of governance, the part Captain Apollo can never quite swallow. "You know she won't even allow records to be kept of any of her meetings? Secrecy and control are becoming obsessions for her. I think this Demetrius business is just the tip of the iceberg." Lee Adama, who was the one to christen the Fleet a gang on the run, is willing to suggest the hypothesis that sometimes a benevolent tyrant's exactly what you need. He might not even believe it, but he's saying it. What Zarek's saying is scarier, and more true, and more touching yet. "No. A tyrant craves power for its own sake. And all Laura wants is to save us all." The most dangerous mission of all.
Lee looks up, intrigued. "Trust me," says Tom. "Better yet, trust yourself. Because that's what I'm really counting on, that you're not the kind of man who can ignore the truth when it stares you in the face." Having cocked the gun and taken the safety off, Tom Zarek can leave with a spring in his step, having dropped a CLASSIFIED dossier on the table before Lee. He doesn't touch it, afraid it might bite, afraid it might disillusion him further, so he just watches Tom go instead.
On Galactica, Cottle's looking after Cally. She asks if maybe she couldn't just have a sedative and sleep in the sickbay, and Cottle gets crusty and kind with her. "Oh, sure. We'll just turn my sickbay in an opium den so you can have a little snooze." He pulls an empty bottle of pills from her pocket and she talks about her insomnia. Ever since the Nebula, ever since something sick worked its way into her home, she's been unable to sleep. "How are things on the home front?" Cottle's eyes go wide for a moment, then narrow in sadness, while she lists how things are: "You mean other than catching my husband with another woman and having him tell me I'm imagining things?" She's talking to the air, not meeting his gaze, which means he can look at her with all the compassion and concern he could never show her directly.
"Well. The man doesn't know what he's got at home. Should have his head examined. As a matter of fact, why don't you bring him in? I'll take a look." She's touched, and says her favorite thing about Cottle is that he's only pretending to be a bastard. So say we all. "Well, while you're in the mood for tough love, maybe you are imagining things." He shakes a bottle at her. "You know, fatigue and antidepressants can make a hell of a paranoia cocktail." And they have been, after too many long nights and questions, whirling on the wall. "I felt like I needed to take something to keep from going completely crazy." He tells her she's not crazy and lights a cigarette, and now, with his permission, she begins to name the stars and moons upon the wall.
"What would you call someone who all but proposes to a man after he breaks her jaw?" A dirty girl. A Fool. A girl unable to admit the difference between love and guilt. A girl so in love with an idea that she refuses to see the reality; a girl driven sick and mad with dissonance. A girl willing to take what she is given, because she's never been given much. A girl who thinks love means building bars. A girl who engineered her own sadness and pain out of loneliness and obsession and fits of rage and violence. A girl who'd barely learned the world, before it was destroyed, and spends every moment trying to put it back together in a way that makes sense, a girl who tried to machine the engine of the world and make it run again. A person, like you and me, and Tory and Galen. Just a girl.
"That the last time he laid hands on you?" She nods with a defiant grin into space. "You want to hear something really sick? Sometimes I wish he would. Lay hands on me. At least then I'd..." She takes Cottle's cigarette from his hands, drags on it with unpracticed fingers. Just a girl. "I'd know he had some feelings about me." He snatches it back, and begs her to get some sleep, to clear her head of all this confusion. To find her way out of that room, crawling up the stars and moons.
Not the answer she was looking for. "Will do, Doc," she says breezily. "Thank you." Not the answer she was looking for, but perhaps it points the way to an answer. Perhaps there's a way out of that room, after all, between the moon and stars.
OBSERVATIONS ON THE FEELING OF THE BEAUTIFUL & SUBLIME
(In which certain Pomegranates are shared among Lovers, on a ship named for Demeter and bound for Earth.)
Red dripping down on her arms, her bedclothes, down her cheek like tears of blood. Kara Thrace paints her vision on the wall of her rack, above her head: The gas giant, the three stars, the speeding comet. Anders enters and before the hatch door slams, he's started in on her. "Kara, what the hell's the matter with you? 'Cause the way you're holing up in here, you're making people wonder." She doesn't turn around, because he's a six-three question mark, but she almost laughs. "Let 'em. Frankly, they're starting to bug me as much as I bug them. Frak 'em." He reminds her that some of the crew actually volunteered, and there's a sneer in her voice as she wonders aloud about that, without turning to look at him. You can't catch her face; she is alien and strange. "Is that what this is about, Sam? You want to know what the deal is with us? With our marriage? Well, it didn't make much sense to begin with, makes even less now."
Sam tears the paintbrush from Kara's hands and calls her a liar. Calls her a coward. He isn't wrong, but maybe she's not wrong to be so afraid. He pushes at her, shoves their wedding tattoos together, begs her to remember: "You remember those? Do you remember when we got 'em? That's what's real. Okay, that is part of who we are. That is a part of who you are, whether you want to admit it or not."
("It started like it always did, with a body. This one was in the river. I could tell she had once been beautiful, but this, a bullet and fast current had taken away from her. All we are, all that we think we are, all that we are certain about is taken away from us... Bitter and sweet, tinged with regret. I'll never be free of her, nor do I want to be. For she is what I am. All that is, should always be.")
It begins with the body. She wrenches her arm again, but finally meets his eyes. "You dumb motherfrakker. I only married you because it was safe and it was easy, Sam." He points at her, raging. Just a boy. "And you were just pathetic enough to go along with it." What would you call someone who stays with a girl after she fraks around, threatens to rake out his eyes, comes back from the dead, threatens to put a bullet in his head for merely being what God made him? Just a boy. "So get the frak out." She jumps up and shoves him, screaming again and again for him to leave. He stands before her fists, teasing her, nearly weeping. Imagine the eyes of something infinite and loving, that could forgive you anything. Not like a hound, not like a pet, but something brilliant, that saw all your angles at once, the dark and bright sides, all the facets, and loved you anyway: that is the gaze of love, and it keeps you in place. Their love was always a little too rough.
"I don't want to fight, Sam," she says, twisting in his arms suddenly, nipping at him. It begins with the body. "I want to frak. You don't get it, do you? I'm not the same girl you married." He's sad, but turned on. "All I want to do right now is frak. Really frak, like it's the end of the world and nothing else matters." He kisses her back, finally, giving in. "So come on, Sam. Make me feel something. I dare you."
He shoves her across the room, she chuckles joyously. Jock love. He climbs onto her, holds her arms above her head. It's the end of the world. Nothing else matters.
Later, Kara sits on the bed. You can finally see her face. She is sated and tired, and for the moment she is real. "We were married, weren't we? I mean, that wasn't just like a fantasy." Too tired to really apply the proper archness, Sam nevertheless makes a passable joke: "Hell, no. And I got the scars to prove it." She asks if it seems different, and by "it" she means everything. "It's like everything seems so far away. The way things feel, the way they taste. Like I'm watching myself, but I'm not really experiencing it, not living it. Like my body's just this alien thing that I'm still attached to." The mystery of the resurrection, the resurrection of mystery: It begins with the body. Sam stares at her, wondering if she's singing the song; if he can dare to hope. "Does that seem crazy to you?" He stares and doesn't answer, and prays silently. Nothing else matters.
THE FALSE SUBTLETY OF THE FOUR SYLLOGISTIC FIGURES
(In which certain Challenges are met with terrible Force.)
Cavil reports that the debate among the Ones, Fours, and Fives has resolved in Natalie's favor. "Our compatriots now seem to agree that it was wrong to box the D'Annas." Natalie notes that Cavil's opinion hasn't changed, apparently, and the Cavils admit that it's unfortunate, how easily the others were swayed by this unity concept. (DEMAND UNITY?) Eight speaks aloud that it's hard to believe in, much less demand, when the Cavils are so intent on enacting their nominal nitpicking purpose. "Look," says one, "He kept his word. You won the day. Do you think you have the right to win our hearts and minds too? No, you're being presumptuous..." Eight begins to protest, but Natalie shuts her down: "They're right. If they've agreed to our terms, then there's no point in courting any more discord." Nothing a Six hates more than that.
Cavil notes that any more discord, after that sown by Natalie's little movement, might have troubling repercussions: "...We may run out of spare bodies," he snots. The other Cavil explains how it's going to go: "The Threes' core consciousness is being downloaded at our central resurrection hub. The nearest accessible server is a half-dozen jumps from here. We can go together and hear what your newfound heroine has to say." But a half-dozen jumps is six chances for betrayal, so Natalie decides to stay on their own ships. Cavil agrees, once again, rather readily -- and suggests that he and his would be more comfortable off her ships in any case. They agree to set out toward the Resurrection Ship; to welcome Three back from the cold together. Nothing a Six wants more than to believe that we're all playing fair, that God has a plan, that she is in on it, that everybody wants the same things she does. That there are things, most importantly, that we simply don't do.
On Colonial One, Zarek calls the Quorum to order, calling on the delegate from Sagittaron. Laura smirks and giggles with Tory as he speaks. "Would the President care to comment on the news stories crediting so-called military sources that claim the Demetrius is searching for new food sources? Or, Madam President, would you rather that we just simply accept this obvious attempt at disinformation?" This last, as intended, sparks a murmur among the gathered Delegates and press, and Zarek calls them to order again.
"I'm afraid I don't control the media, Jacob, as much as you know I'd love to. Regarding the reports, the Demetrius mission is a matter of Fleet security, and as such I can't and won't discuss it, period." But Cantrell's not done. Leave it to a Sagittaron to bitch and moan about every little misuse of authority. "Madam President, I have to say that my constituency is not satisfied with an executive..." Another Delegate, a woman, asks Roslin if she gets that the whole Demetrius thing casts huge doubt on the major Roslin Thing, which is the path to Earth. (The question itself makes me think she might be the new Geminese Delegate, which I hate because A) you don't replace a black lady with a black lady and B) I can't handle the idea that Sarah Porter died on New Caprica. I simply cannot allow that possibility, I love her too much.) Laura admits that the Demetrius issue does kind of call bullshit on Laura's whole prophet margin, but reminds the Quorum that she still hasn't even admitted the Demetrius is actually looking for Earth. Cantrell starts in on her again, and the President asks everybody to chill the hell out. "I cannot believe that the Demetrius is the only matter that is important to your constituents. Can we please move on? You know my answer to this."
As the Quorum and press shout and freak, and Laura's migraine shifts into overdrive, Lee thinks for a second and realizes he's got the perfect opportunity to make Laura love him again, and forgive him again, and meet his gaze, and to prove his worth. As he stands, Laura chuckles bitterly to Zarek, but Lee keeps going.
"Madam President, I'm sure we can all understand the importance for the need for security. Coming from the military, it's my experience that we sometimes err too strongly on the side of caution. So for the sake of reassuring my colleagues and hopefully putting this matter to rest, would it not be fair to say that you and Admiral Adama are naturally exploring all possible routes to Earth?" A female Delegate applauds this speech. Laura stands up, her face so terrifying and bright that Lee is nearly pushed down into his seat again.
"Mr. Adama, we are all anxious to receive the benefit of your experience. But, um, I personally don't feel the need to have a junior delegate appoint himself my spokesman. Let's move on. Jacob, you had a matter on the table. Would you please continue?" Cantrell begins to ask for medical supplies for the Sagittarons, as if purely to poke the bruise "Woman King" left in its shitty wake, and Lee calls for a point of order. ["I agree; whoever this Jacob dude is, he really needs to shut up about the Sagittarons." -- Joe R] Cantrell yields the floor. "This relates to your Executive Order 112," Lee explains. Laura considers him. "112," she says. It's not a question.
"...Which establishes a system of tribunals, the judges chosen by you, answerable only to a special court of appeals..." Laura looks at Tom, perturbed; he doesn't meet her eyes, and she stands. "... The judges of which would also be chosen by you. Effectively it creates a justice system that further and dangerously concentrates power into the hands of the Executive." Playa Palacios and the rest of the press start freaking out. "Namely, into your hands, Madam President. Far from being independent or impartial, it would actually damage the very idea of justice. Even the illusion of the idea of justice." He's so snotty, so hurt. It reminds me of nothing so much as Gaius, back in the weeks leading up to the election, when he'd just get so proud with her. Even worse when it's Lee, flying too close to the sun. Even better, too.
"Thank you, Mr. Adama. The order you're referring to, Executive Order 112, is actually a work in progress, and the changes it proposes are provisional. It is a first step, a tiny step, but the first step in a larger plan, actually, to create a fair and comprehensive legal system. Which you, of all people, can admit we sorely need. Now naturally, I was going to bring it to the Quorum to open it up for debate once it was finished, which it isn't. But since you've brought it into the public today, I propose that we put it on the docket for the full session. Is that satisfactory to you, Mr. Adama?" He looks down, quieted. Tom is quiet. Laura is disgusted. Lee thinks he won, but he didn't. I like it. I like this a whole lot, actually: this idea that idealism and pragmatism must unify the Fleet together, even as the Cylons are splitting disastrously apart.
A Fleet of Basestars jump together into naked space. You can see Orion's Belt, although I'm not sure it's on purpose. I hope so, because what a weird mistake to make at this point. Natalie's Eight immediately notices that the Resurrection Ship didn't make the jump, but can't tell if it's because they're having FTL trouble. Obviously it's a trap, you two. Get the frak out of there! Basestars jump in like jacks on the sky, zooming closer; and the Eight tells a nervous Natalie that Cavil's baseships are breaking formation. They take up positions around the group of Natalie's Basestars, and she finally admits that they're under attack. "Alert the others! We need to jump now." Her terrified line reading of that, the swallowed "now," is just excellent. There's a blast that rocks her up against a console, and takes out their FTL, and Natalie screams. "No Resurrection Ship. They're really trying to kill us."
Presumably, this is what happens, although I find it hard to believe. Missiles take out at least three baseships, and the field of fire becomes the liquid interface on Cavil's shape. He runs his hands through it, with a Doral in the background, and comforts a shaking Boomer. "Just remember they started it." She's unsure, afraid; this is what being a robot is like. "But we're killing them. We're truly killing them. My own sisters..." He doesn't look at her, just plays in the interface. "They can trust their God to watch over their immortal souls." And what about theirs? "We're machines, dear. Remember? We don't have souls."
Which is what Boomer wanted, after all. She's just a fool, too, learning new ways of being, new ways of cutting herself off. Allowed to play; allowed, for the first time, to be a Cylon. Given that permission by Brother Cavil, to join in the collective and bow down to the unity of his faith.
So then, this is the test. Holy absolution in the cold light of the engine and the circuit, a brand new life in the love of Cavil's God, or the lives of her beloved sisters? She was once beautiful, but a bullet and fast current took that away from her. All she was, all that she thought she was, all that she was certain about were taken away from her. It begins with these bodies, scattered and unresurrected: "We love you, Sharon. And we always will."
THE KINGDOM OF ENDS
(In which we burn off what doesn't work, and receive the scars to prove it.)
Cally sits in her quarters among dark stars, burning on the walls. Tory touched the Chief. She opens the bottle and sees things that never happened: the Chief kissing Tory's cheek. She remembers, as the baby cries, Galen's arms around her, around her belly where their family grew. She became a mother. She was Galen's girl, and a mother, and she had a family beyond the hangar deck, beyond the family she'd built when the Cylons and Gaius Baltar made orphans of us all. One bottle is empty, then several. The Chief touched her face, with love. In love with her, with Cally. On New Caprica they started fresh, at the Admiral's word they were able to start fresh. She became a revolutionary, throwing herself after Galen on the engines they'd built with their blood. She thinks a thought you don't think, mired in misery and lost in a fog. She touches her baby one last time, and goes to shut the hatch. And in the hinge there is a note, in a strange hand: Weapons Locker 1701D 1330h.
Cally watches from around the corner as Tigh and Galen meet Tory. Tigh opens the hatch and they all enter, after acting suspicious for awhile. Cally stands outside the locker, where she's always stood. She opens a panel in the bulkhead. It's good to be small. She works her way between bulkhead and pipes, squeezing, almost drops into the body of the ship. Down goes an empty bottle. All she has in her hands now is her screwdriver. She braces herself across from the locker and removes a panel, staring down into the room.
"Now I've heard everything," Tigh rages. "Anders and Gaius Frakkin' Baltar. That's just what we need, another Cylon nymphomaniac." Heh. Tory blows him off, not about to explain about Kant and sex and drugs. "Don't worry, Colonel. You're not my type." He tells them all to stop meeting with each other in public. "After that scene you two pulled in Joe's Bar the other night we can't risk any more attention." Chief is anxious to leave, promises not to make that mistake again. Not after Tory freaked him out with her nihilistic bullshit and Cally ran around barfing. He just wants to leave. "I told Cally I'd check on her," he says, and Tigh wonders why he didn't check in with her after receiving the note. Which of course he never got, because Tory found him and brought him to the meet. "Oh, frak me," says the Chief. "If Cally finds the note then..." Then what? How far will it go? Tigh thinks about Ellen, stops himself from thinking about Ellen. "Well, you better hope she doesn't. And you better put an end to this affair business. Whatever it takes to stop her from nosing around. Last thing we need is for your Cylon-hating wife to find out there's a bunch of skinjobs running around this ship and that her husband is one of them."
The Chief stands behind the moons and stars, running a blade across his flesh; the glint of a razor twisting in the light. Boomer's blood, dropping to the floor; Cally and Chief making love. The Chief licks the blood from his human finger, monstrous and inhuman. He touches her, with monstrous hands. She thought it was love, she thought it was every dream coming true. The Chief made love to her; he touched her with those hands. Her belly grew beneath those hands. It's still inside her, even now. She is steeped in it. She is sick. She is a dirty girl.
Cally freaks and drops the panel; it falls between pipes and bulkheads, and everyone stops, frozen in time. The Three stare at each other. Nobody moves. Cally works her way back out of the walls. It's good to be small.
Tigh, "tired of looking at [their] sorry faces" after all this time alone with their fears and secrets and shame, leaves the locker. Cally crawls out onto the floor just as the hatch is opening; her hands are shaking too badly to replace the bulkhead panel, so she runs. Tory and Chief are alone a moment, and then exit separately. Tory closes the hatch and locks it, then notices the panel, propped against the bulkhead.
(From Paul Schrader's wonderful Light Sleeper: "A million stars were circling in the world above my head./ As I drifted back in memory to all the things we said... / The ties that bind and bless the soul, that bind me up in chains./ Your love cuts through my weakened heart and memories twist the blade... / I believe the ancient promises, I believe that I am free./ But love comes as a great offense, like innocence betrayed./ I don't think you'll recognize me on the other side of day." The ties that bind and bless the soul also bind us up in chains. Love is why we build bars.)
Cally reenters their home, shoving the note back into the hatch hinge, shaking violently. "No, no, no, no. Frak! Frak!" She looks around, scared into clarity for once, and is facing away from the hatch when she hears it open. She cannot turn around. She tries desperately to compose herself as it enters. Her eyes are broken and rabid and sad, deeply hollow.
"Hey," it says softly. "How you doing?" The moons and stars played across its face, through the panel and into that lair. She tells it she is fine. "You feeling okay?" it asks, and she assures it that she's fine, without turning around. The lights illuminate the first time she looked into its face and realized that she was in love. All the times it made her think they were in love. "You sure?" Sure. She thought she was coming down with something, so she slept in. It asks if she visited Cottle, and she says no. She's feeling better. She can feel it in the darkness behind her, lit by a magic lantern, great and breathing, full of violence.
"Good," it says. It even sounds relieved. "Look, I know it's been a rough couple of weeks. I know what you're thinking. It's not true." There's only terror in her now, but her voice is steady. "It isn't?" It's not true. She remembers kissing it, on New Caprica. Curled up on a rack, the three of them, like a family.
"No. I'm not having an affair. I figured it out. I know what's important. You're important. Nicky's important. We're important. Us. That's really what it's all about, isn't it? Family, a future. Building that future together." Their beautiful faces on New Caprica, the day Gaius Baltar broke ground: how the Admiral promised them a life off the ship together. So that Nicky could grow up in the open air, a half-monster, twisted thing growing up under the sun. The Colonel, the President's Chief of Staff, her husband: where else are they lurking? Did the Admiral know what it was, when he sent them off to be together? Did the Admiral send her into hell, to make love to a monster, to carry its beast inside her? She feels it on her skin.
"I promise you from now on," it says, "I will be here for us. The three of us. Maybe the four of us. You know, maybe someday we, we'll have another baby. What do you think?" Its hands, touching her body. "Another baby? A brother, a sister for little Nick? What do you think, buddy? Hey?" It gets too close to her son, to the little creature with the fat cheeks and the happy eyes. It went into the locker with the rest of them, and revealed itself to her. "Would you like a little brother or sister?" And was that all it wanted? To put more of those inside her? She let it touch her once, a thousand times; she was grateful. She was a fool. She knows what she must do.
Cally grabs a wrench and beats the thing bloody. She'll only have one shot; she remembers the strength in those hands, remembers the unrelenting, hideous strength of his fists from inside the nightmare. It won't come true again, so she beats it, even as it crawls on its knees toward her, wordlessly begging. She grabs a launch key from its pocket, and its abomination from the crib, and leaves it for dead, lying on the floor of their home, covered in blood.
She carries the thing, the tiny abomination, through the corridors. Everybody can see how filthy she is, covered in sickness and destruction and hateful contagion. Nobody speaks to her, but they all look at her and the awful thing in her arms; they all look away.
Cally walks slowly across the hangar bay. Their world, the place she built a family and fell in love, after the world ended. Before the world ended. The launch tube bay opens slowly before her like horror, like a gaping dark mouth. She walks slowly, but with purpose. The thing in her arms isn't sure yet, whether to cry or reach out to her face. She stares into infinity.
Cally stands in the middle of the tube airlock, turning slowly in a circle, taking in the lines and angles of her tomb. She stares out the window, into space. All the stars, and her face written across the glass like a wound. Who knows how long she stands there? She walks slowly, the thing grumbling in her arms, and opens the lock panel. She turns the key, and the lights go from red to green.
As long as the ties that bind us together are stronger than those that would tear us apart, all will be well.
Tory speaks her name. It is dirty in that mouth. She tells the thing to stay away. "How could you?" she asks. How could you stand there and laugh at me behind your eyes? How could you end this world again?
"We don't even know what we are," it says, but Cally's not fooled. "I heard you. You're Cylons! A bunch of frakkin' skinjobs." Tory sighs: "I wish it were that simple."
Cally turns the key, and the airlock doors close on them both. "I told you to stay away from me. Guess you better hope there's a spare body waiting for you." It holds its arms wide, in supplication. "You want to kill me? Go ahead. Don't do this to yourself. Or to your child. To Nicky." There is a tug of war between her heart and broken mind: the comfortable weight on her hip of a child whose laughter and crying informs her every moment. Is this how they will win her over? Does she love the child? It starts with the body.
"Get the frak away! You're not getting your hands on my son! Not you, not Galen! He frakkin' used me!" The things swears he didn't know, that none of them knew. "We didn't find out until we entered that Nebula." Cally demands that she shut the frak up, calls Tory a traitor. The thing moves toward her, smoothly and quietly, beating at her with words. There's a tug of war, and every word and every step is pulling Cally closer to the fire.
"All we know is that we're Cylons. But in every other way, we're still the same people." Cally knows better. "You're frakkin' machines!" It looks at its hands, musing. "I don't know. But I do know that we're not evil. We're not inhuman." Coming ever closer, so quietly, moving so smoothly and softly. Like a friend, or a wildcat after its prey. "And we're just as scared and confused as you are." Which is scared, and confused. But it's not even about the horror anymore, now: it's about whether or not this is a world that Cally can live in.
So it becomes a test: To become a fool too, to learn new ways of being, new ways of creating the world. Absolution in the unholy light of the monsters that killed her family, her friends, and finally her heart. To step across that salt into sickness and oblivion, to accept herself as a dirty girl. A machine's whore, the lover of a monster. To breed with beasts and worse than beasts. To become a thing herself. She was beautiful, but a bullet and fast current took that away. All she is, all that she thought she was, all that she was certain about, taken away from her. "I can't live like this! It's a frakkin' nightmare."
The thing nearly weeps for her, remembering the Nebula and the song, the outrageous feeling of being born again into flesh you'd never truly owned. That sickening feeling, before the freedom. "You don't want to do this, Cally. He's your son." Cally starts to cry, and there are tears in Tory's eyes. Cally falls to her knees, and begins to repent.
"What have I done? I'm so sorry. Oh, Gods..."
Tory touches her shoulder, and comforts her as she comforts her son. She speaks softly, promising to work it out with Cally, to save them both, to save the world. To wipe away the salt and put Cally back together. She clucks, taking Nicky from his mother so that she can compose herself, wipe off the dirt and tears. Tory sees her, an imperfect, a dirty girl, trying to reassemble herself, and wonders if she can trust her, and the tears in her eyes shine with the knowledge that she can't.
There's too much hate and fear between the known and the unknown. On the list you have an unstable woman with a grudge, famously and murderously unstable, whose entire life has just been destroyed. Whose life was built of weak straw and sticks at the best of times. A good mother, a loving wife. A small girl with small plans, who has potential and capacity, for love and for loyalty and for devotion. Who has potential for hatred and destruction and suspicion and whose love of her own victimhood insinuates itself into every motion, every movement, every decision. Who would have destroyed herself, and her own innocent child, out of hate. Out of anger and confusion, too, but mostly hate. Cally isn't on the list. Whatever purpose the Five, whatever the path of the angel, whatever the door you're begged to walk through, Cally represents a viewpoint that will not, cannot do it. After Tigh and Gaius, Cally's the most human of us all.
Tory knocks her down with Cylon strength; she skids on her face and blacks out against the launch tube floor. Who knows how long she lies there? She wakes later, grabbing at the baby's blanket. Nick is gone. Sick, she looks up, and the launch key is gone too. The light is green: the lock is active. Through the window Tory comforts the baby, the sweet innocent child, and turns the key in a panel. Her gaze meets Cally's eyes, then slides away and down. And she pushes the button.
We burn off what doesn't work. It hurts, or else it doesn't count. Cally's beautiful face fills the night. Chief sits in his quarters, with blood still on his temple. The Admiral sits quietly with him. His blood is on the floor. Inside everybody is a room full of delights and horrors, rages and pain and joy and sunlight. Mourn for a world that's ended. For a star that's just gone out.