Title: Honors to the Dead

Genre: Romance (offscreen) angst, family, humor,

Rating: K +

Summary: They met by chance, became family by common grief.

Pairing/characters: Adama/Roslin, Ta (OC)

NOTE:I I have no education on how pre-language Humans interacted or how much thought they were capable of. Ta, therefore, is only a fictional depiction. Please don't tell me this or that is impossible about her. I know. Enjoy!

Ta was of the ground. Of the planets and soil of the land. She knew of light and heat and flame. But when she ran into him, she knew that there was more to sky and soil than she knew. Despite the muted senses of her race, Ta knew that he was something strange, and there was awe in her eyes at the unknown feeling in her head. She couldn't articulate the feeling, not being what we would call a modern human. More than the one we call Lucy, she was still not what he was. Inching close to the rocky outcropping, Ta kept herself as hidden as possible as she looked over at the stranger.

For his part, William Adama had known the native woman was there long before she'd noticed him. He was confused by her being alone, having never seen one of the native people outside of a group in the four months he'd been on Earth. An outcast, perhaps, like on ancient Tauron. He let her be and went back to tending his fire. A few fish sat to his right on a flat, clean rock. Elosha's prayerbook to his left. He snuck a glance at the woman. She could come as close as she wanted, and in her own time. He wouldn't startle her away, as curious about her people as she was certainly of him.

Ta watched the heat and light as the man put the meals on sharp sticks and stuck them over it. She frowned. Why was he even bothering with flame? He sat back down with a groan. An Old One, then. Much older than any of her clan had been. Ta studied his relaxed face, the lines of knowing and the strange water color of his eyes. He did not seem threatening. Ta knew she could fight him and win should he be hiding his true face. So she moved around the outcropping into his view, but still far enough away to run. When he turned to her and smiled, she almost jumped. Sounds that made no sense to her came from his mouth, but the tone was enough for her to understand he meant no harm. She slowly moved towards him and then sat down a foot away, enjoying the sudden heat of the flames. It had been cold that night. Gently, the strange man moved to pull one of his meals from the flame and handed it to her. More sounds that made no sense, but the tone told her he wanted her to eat. He smiled at her and Ta smiled back shyly.

"You can come over here, I won't hurt you," Bill said, knowing she couldn't make sense of his words, but hoping his tone conveyed enough. She moved more fully into the light, and he could see that her group, at least, had begun to clothe themselves in something familiar from his history books that were even now somewhere in space with the Centurions. Just some small furs, but at least they kept her warm. He leaned over the fish, judging the small one to be ready to eat, and handed it to her.

"Here, do you want something to eat?" he said. She seemed to understand his tone, just as he'd hoped, for she took it and ate slowly, returning his smile with her own attempt. He waited for his own fish to cook, and both ate in silence. He took a few glances at the woman, amazed to see how very much like his own people Earth's natives were, but otherwise the time passed to the sound of eating and crackling flames. It was strange, the first time he'd had company since Laura's last, beautiful words.

Laura. As he finished his fish, he moved away from the fire, leaving the native woman to finish the last.

Ta ate the second meal she'd had in days quickly, but her eyes followed the man as he moved to the furthest edge of the circle of light, near a mound of rocks with two sticks at one end. Putting down the remains of her food, Ta watched as he bowed his head and touched the mound with one hand, murmuring in a soft, broken voice that immediately sunk Ta's good feelings from the flame and food. She knew what had happened. She didn't know he was saying "I love you, still" and "I miss you" but she knew. Ta knew because she had seen the bodies of her clan, taken from her by a failed hunt. She felt the same as this man. He had seen a body too, taken before being an Old One. She moved slowly to stand next to him. Shakily she reached out and touched his shoulder and he turned. Ta smiled.

"Ta," the sound that was her call to her clan. She held a hand to her chest. Then she pointed at the mound, then back to herself.

He smiled.

Bill felt his heart constrict in his chest. So she was not an outcast, but had lost her family. Perhaps even a partner. He smiled up at her, slightly ashamed that he'd thought her too simple to understand the pain that existed as a fact of life for him now. He wished Laura was there, alive and healthy, knowing she would have delighted in meeting Ta, would have immediately understood her intelligence.

"Thank you," he said. Ta tried another shaky smile.

Ta decided that night she would not leave one like her. He was sad, had lost his clan too. She would stay, then, learn how to live on her own from her new clan. So she did. She learned his name, Bill, and that was that. Ta and Bill and the memories of their clans.

He had taught her time. Sounds together like 'day' and 'week' and 'month'. And she showed Bill the good plants and water. And it was good. So 5 months later, Ta was coming home with something new. She was happy, a look around her at three new clan people she had found, outcast or ones like her and Bill. He would be happy to see more people.

She ran up the hill once she saw the rocks, calling for him. She could not wait to show him their new clan people. He did not come out of the hut. Ta frowned.

"Bill," she called, Bill?" and then her eyes adjusted to the cool darkness inside and she saw him lying on one of two grass piles that were their beds. He was not breathing.

Ta remembered one "word" Bill had taught her as she picked him up with the help of the three newcomers: "tears". They were what had come from her "eyes" when her clan died, when Bill's "Laura" had taken her last breath. They came now and did not stop until the last rock had been set over him, next to Laura. Then she returned to the hut, while the two boys and the girl sat near the mounds. She came out again, the "book" in her hands and laid it on the newly made mound. There were words in it Bill had taught her by sound since she could not connect markings to sounds as he could. "reading" he called it. But she spoke anyway, to the awe of her new clan people.

"Zeus and Hera together as one.." she said. Zeus and Hera. "parents" of lost people. People like Ta.

They would survive, Ta's people. And they would not leave their home near the great sea, it's warmth sustaining them for centuries. They grew, split, and became many mighty city-states, each more famous than the last. Ta's direct descendants, however, never left the spot where they had been gathered. Zeus and Hera were their guardians, then their Gods. And they were fine warriors, sons of battle and daughters of strength, the fearsome and the just. And above all, they believed in the honor of the dead.

NOTE: Not much A/R directly, but it's there. A cookie to the first person to tell me where I had Bill land that raptor, and what city-state Bill inadvertently founded.