You and Whose Army
By Jillian
Disclaimer: Characters do not belong to me. In truth, I don't even know them as well as I'd like to… but I'm working on that one.
Warnings: spoilers through episode 13
Helo couldn't sleep for all the noise.
On Caprica, he couldn't sleep for all the quiet. The emptiness of the streets he had walked stretched onward behind his eyelids and served as a hollow preamble to nervous dreams. Given the circumstances, Galactica functioned on a never-ending rotation of shifts, seamless streams of workers buzzing around the hive. Full of life. Even when he got his bunk to himself and settled with one ear against the regulation-sized pillow, his ears were full of the hiss and spit of the air filtration and circulation system. The unhealthy wheezing was not particularly encouraging.
No matter how tired he was, how limp his limbs, it all kept him awake.
Slowly, through the insomnia, an honest thought slunk forward, "Frak!"
The solitary word was absorbed into the pillow where his dry lips threatened to stick.
He was no longer used to sleeping alone.
As if holding a cosmic breath, the ventilation system paused. Only a temporary silence, but a timely hush punctuating the distasteful thought like acid coming up to the back of his tongue. Next came a distinct, disconnected gurgle from underneath the scratchy blanket.
Taking the slightest pretense of an excuse, Helo threw off the blanket and got to his feet in a single movement. He was home. They could at least see to it that he was fed properly. His boots echoed in the last moments of stillness and then the ominous click of the vents and he could feel the air begin to move again. It felt like the edge of a sleeve moving along the back of his neck.
Hovering in the hallway, Helo tipped his head at the mutual gesture from the passing pair of soldiers patrolling the ship. Colonel Tigh was trying to keep a relaxed atmosphere on board the best he could given the ripples of discord coming down from the very top. But, at the same time, the XO had to respond and double shifts were the order of the day.
He wondered if they would feed Sharon. Or if that thing, he shook his head, even needed to eat. Or if she would need food, because of the baby.
She had always been talking. Putting out explanations, reasons, justifications, and excuses until Helo could no longer tell if he'd been convinced or exhausted with her way of vomiting words.
"How can I trust you?" He had shouted, careless of the danger, heedless of the rain and cold. Watching her tremble as they sat at an opposing angle from each other and wondering what degree of programming a computer needed in order to imitate a person so completely.
"Believe me," her voice crackled, wearied sounding and still sharp like a live wire dangerously close to the puddling water at the base of the cement wall she leaned against, "Your child is here." And she put both hands flat against her belt line.
Unraveled. Helo liked things to be straightforward. Philosophy was great when it could be spelled with an algebraic equation. The layers unraveled in a sprawl of words: betrayal plus loathing multiplied by conception. Cylon divided by Human shouldn't reattach in Procreation.
Meltdown into negative numbers, and Helo had pressed his fingers into his forehead. Math had no place trying to explain his heart. He could admit to a feeling because he was human. His eyes started to drift away from their determined stare, the edges of light began to blur with shadow, and the weapon in his hand became unbearably heavy. Helpless.
"Lieutenant Helo? Sir?"
He was on Galactica. Dry. But now he knew the ache in his stomach was not hunger. He felt ill.
"Do you need something? Did you want to come in?" Medical staff. She was a tiny thing, dark hair pulled back from her face and her lips didn't quite close around her words leaving a toothy hesitation underneath each question. He hadn't found his way to the mess hall or the galley. He had walked, lost in thoughts of Caprica, right to the infirmary.
"Couldn't sleep," Helo tried to relax his shoulders.
"If only we could match up those who can't sleep with those who can't stay awake," she chuckled. The door to the infirmary had been open and she must have just walked by when he'd been caught up in memories. In her hands was a tower of precariously balanced lightweight boxes sporting different colored stickers and scrawled labels, "I've been trying to send Captain Apollo away to sleep, but he keeps falling asleep back in the recovery room."
A question prickled around his foremost thoughts until Helo had to scratch at his jaw with the frustration on wanting to ask. He should ask about Apollo's health. He should ask about the Commander's well-being and the hopelessness of his recovery. He should ask about the chances that a miniscule number of humans had at surviving. What he wanted to ask about was grated into his ears, "Have they made any decisions on where to keep the Cylons?"
The woman tilted her head with a balance of curiosity and surprised jest "Excuse me?"
"I spent most of today hosing the Caprica stink off me, being debriefed by the Colonel and told to wait in my quarters," Helo excused himself, "I haven't been given orders or asked my opinion, but I wondered if they were keeping her in some quarantined situation here or in the brig."
"Yes, actually," she crossed the room and put down her boxes taking the time to rearrange them into a manageable formation, "The Cylon that came from Caprica, with you," She added with unnecessary clarification even as she kept her hands busy with adjusting the boxes into straight lines, "Has been very chatty. Colonel Tigh asked Starbuck to stay with him and they didn't come out for hours."
Helo nodded, mostly with his chin, imitating a listening response. He remembered how Starbuck had decisively concluded that her stolen Raider was no use to transport more than one person through a jump. He watched the peculiar dance of her last words mixed with the curl of her lip and the dangerous light in her eyes when Sharon had spoken of solutions. Describing, in detail, the options and availability of capturing a larger vessel with the ability to tow the Raider and all.
"Like I'm going to give a Cylon the last known zip code of all humanity," Starbuck had crossed her arms, "Uh-huh."
Helo found himself in the awkward position of defending the same resource toward which he still felt a physical repulsion. He put a hand out to Starbuck's shoulder and leaned in watching her as she in turn refused to take her wary stare from Sharon, "She's useful and hasn't," he paused, "She hasn't betrayed me in the past two months."
"No, you can't keep her," Starbuck quipped, "I'm sure the Commander would frown on Cylon pets."
Helo refrained from mentioning the baby. The word hadn't been forgotten, but having been spoken, neither he nor Starbuck could say it again. Even though it shouted through the silences and hid underneath every unintentional meeting of their eyes.
"She killed her own kind." Helo knew all of Sharon's reasons as they continually echoed in his brain and wanted to wear down his defenses a razor's edge severing ligaments and fibers of his very way of thinking, "Protected me."
Starbuck did not hide her scorn and amazement, "What a frakking genius proof. Cylons killing each other. Maybe we should simply wait it out until they finish each other off?" She started to pace the museum office, demonstrating a swelling limp, muttering, refusing to be convinced and occasionally Helo heard enough to know she was running escape scenarios.
He didn't react when Sharon came to wait next to him, "She hates me. But she won't leave without you." Helo felt sharp pain at how much even then he loved the sound of her voice, "Every human life becomes exponentially more precious when your numbers are so few."
Helo glanced down and even as he loved hearing the voice he recoiled from the beautiful smile and the disarming gentleness of her eyes, "Every life," she repeated.
Starbuck withheld consent, but at the same time, her endgame for Caprica was no different than Sharon's original offer, "It won't work, most likely," Starbuck had put a hand on either hip and faced them both with an assured command, "Okay. Let's do it."
As if swallowing a potent cure, Helo felt his face breaking into a grin, "The XO and Starbuck? Let's pray that the gods restore Commander Adama to us."
"So say we all," the nurse breathed with no small conviction.
"So say we all."
The echoing refrain was less reverent, but Helo had never expected more than spiritual recognition from the Adamas of the universe.
"Did we wake you up?" She asked, somehow believing that the boxes still needed her assistance.
"I heard Lieutenant Agathon's last comment and thought I'd come make an unofficial welcome," Apollo offered his hand which Helo shook with a health swallow of admiration. Even for all the stories that Starbuck had flooded the Galactica before Captain Apollo's arrival, he and Boomer had found an equal number of honorifics logged in this man's service record.
"Truly, I pray for good reports from your father's health," Helo offered weakly.
"Thank you," Apollo replied with precision, "However, if there is one thing that we all have in common, then it is that we are naturally tenacious survivors." The Captain shifted his gaze, his eyes with a pointed weight, "How many days was it? Your reputation for defying death is quite the championed story. Deservedly."
Helo dismissed the consequences and spoke. He liked keeping everything simple, upfront, open, "I'm not sure I would be here without help."
Apollo wavered, and Helo felt a danger start to divide them. Again, he was defending a Cylon. No less: the model that had tried to kill this man's father. Putting him against the people with whom he actually agreed.
"Hey, I'm not happy about it," Helo held up his hands, surrendering the point and trying to win back Apollo's ear, "But she was Sharon. Without her and Starbuck, that's just the truth of it."
At Starbuck's name, the CAG obviously relaxed with a well-hidden sigh, Apollo spoke, "I'm glad to have you back, Lieutenant. However we come by you, good officers… people are worth whatever it costs."
"Every life." Helo heard the words on cue like the launch of a Raptor after the right sequencing of levers and buttons. Her sincerity mocking. Her truths interweaving with his concepts of reality. The plausibility of Cylon and Human life commingled. Infectious. He had to win over the Captain and restore his friendship with Kara. Perhaps he'd score a regular shift back in a Raptor. Build up his reputation.
Earn back his child. Because, as little he could comprehend it, that was going to be his new, daily battle.
"Lieutenant?"
He wobbled on his feet for a moment, suddenly very aware of his perceived connection to a ship sailing through uncertain space. He had no control over where it took him, and oddly, Helo felt more vulnerable than he had in the abandoned streets of Caprica.
"Your pills," the nurse whispered, on cue having appeared from her discrete business at the desk and pressing a small paper package into his hand, "So you can sleep."
Helo looked at the wrapped pills then up at Apollo's sympathetic smile, "You'll find your space habits return soon enough. Plenty of opportunity to forget Caprica."
But Apollo misunderstood. The metallic stomping of the Toasters would always be chasing him. Helo would always feel Sharon's breath on his neck from keeping only one step ahead. The subtle enticements would resonate in his ears.
He had to be alert. His fingers crushed around the pills with the beginning of a sweat-rimmed determination.
Helo could not sleep. For all the noise.