BSG - Children of the Revolution

Children of the Revolution, also known as, "the TS Eliot Project"

Basic premise, to extort "The Wasteland" and "The Hollow Men" to bracket little bits on some of the lesser kids of the Galactica.



Title: Children of the Revolution ("The TS Eliot Exercise")
Author: plum (zeplum)
Rating: PGish, for language
Disclaimer: Don't own any of it, even in my best delusions of grandeur.
A/N: Set between the mini and the first half of the first season.




*****

Kept the hours
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine

*****

"Why do the Cylons come every thirty-three minutes? Why isn't it thirty-four or thirty-five or --"

Cally had always been an inquisitive child. From the time she could crawl, she wanted to investigate, pull things apart to see how they worked. Her parents indulged her, providing answers to her endless questions when they could. It was the greatest gift they gave her.

The Chief is good to her. Treats her like the kid sister she thinks he probably never had. He answers her questions, teaches her things she didn't know how to do before, but even he has a breaking point.

"Cally?"

"What?"

"Shut up."

Not much has changed since the end of the world. There's a routine around the deck -- Vipers and Raptors to fix and overhaul, pilots to coddle, grease under her nails, never ending exhaustion. Nothing new, just more of one and less of another: more frustration, less bodies to take it out on.

But Cally still wonders why -- about everything and anything. She'll keep on asking questions, dead sober or punch drunk, because she knows it will finally be over when someone stops answering.

*****

The hope only
Of empty men

*****

A job worth doing is worth doing well. And for him, most every job is worth doing -- like playing errand boy for Dr. Gaius Baltar, even if those errands involve a distracted and spur of the moment plea for blood oranges and massage oil.

Gaeta is always happy to snap to and do what is asked of him, and he takes a selfless pride in performing even the most menial of tasks.

Calculate the next FTL jump? Yes, sir -- and here's a way to do it so that all the heads on-ship are cleaned out while we're at it! Look adoringly at Dr. Baltar as he twitches violently and talks to an invisible companion? If it boosts the doctor's ego so the Cylon detector will come on-line more quickly, he will beam and follow Baltar around like love sick puppy.

Even the smallest of actions can result in fantastic consequences, of this Gaeta is well aware. That's why he plays the role of Number One Bridge Bunny with such attention and patience. Somewhere along the way his actions will influence the future, even if it's in a very tiny way.

Gaeta has faith in the future, and so he pays attention to what he does in the present.

*****

I think we are in the rats' alley
Where the dead men lost their bones.

*****

She's seen memorials like this before. Shining faces looking down at her, static, tacked up on walls by loved ones. She had friends on that wall back home. Mothers and fathers of her friends, relatives that she'd never know. All cut down by Zarek's ambition and idealism.

Freedom fighter. He was nothing more than a butcher. There wasn't enough left to carry out the proper funeral rights -- but they still prayed for the souls of the dead.

Dualla has seen the effects of death on a large scale before. She survived once, and she will survive again. Finding an empty space on one of the walls, she tacks up the picture she carries.

5,251 Saggitarons survive.

*****

Unreal City
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn

*****

He lost the last of his group this morning. He has been running from the Cylons for three days now. He's surviving on little to no sleep, an injured leg, and the anti-radiation injections. When he stops to think about it, Helo starts to wonder if maybe it's the radiation that's keeping him alive at this point, somehow keeping those hulking, deadly toasters away from him.

He takes it as a sign that its gone too far -- he's starting to crack up. Running for your life will do that to a guy.

Helo reaches a ridgeline at mid-day and taking a chance, climbs out to the edge to look upon Caprica City for the first time since the attacks. He knows the city well: the best place to grab a bowl of miso soup in the middle of the night, the block where one girlfriend lived and his last girlfriend probably died. The attacks came mid-morning local time. She would've been running out for coffee when the first bombs went off.

He doesn't know why he keeps running. There is no where to go, but Helo keeps on going. He's a leader of one now, and by the Lords of Kobol, he's going to take out a few more of those metal bastards before it's his turn to go.

*****

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish?

*****

Somewhere on the fourth day (though with all the FTL jumps, Billy isn't precisely sure) he realizes that he's not part of an interim government. No, President Roslin and those on this small ship are in the process of forming a new, permanent leadership -- and he's right in the middle of it, like a civics lesson come to life.

He's so busy that he can almost forget how this all came about. He has fuzzy notions besides; he didn't see the destruction of his home first hand. Didn't see the worlds thrown into a state of pestilential chaos. However, he did see thousands left behind because their ships weren't capable of a faster than light jump. Thousands died because the government, his government didn't start the transfer in time to save them all.

Were decisions always this hard?

All he wanted was to be the aide to the Minister of Education -- form contacts, learn policy, advance his own career. Now he's aide to the President of the Twelve Colonies, or what's left of them. Billy will trade it all in a heartbeat.

*****

The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star

*****

Even on the days when the CAG has something lodged up his ass (no doubt wedged there by Starbuck) and Boomer is even moodier than usual, Crashdown counts himself lucky. If he hadn't been on the Galactica during the attacks, his ass would've been so much irradiated meat, probably on some godforsaken icy moon of Picon, scanning for mineral deposits.

So, life is hard Post. That's what Crashdown thinks of it as, Post-Everything That Came Before. Things go on, and one of those is life being hard. He didn't have it easy when there were still twelve colonies. He still had to struggle and learn and work. He didn't make as much money as he would've liked, and his girlfriends were always a little too something -- something that didn't make them last too long. He worked long shifts for little regard or praise and tried to unwind with a game of pyramid.

Not much has changed. He does his job, sticks up for his friends, and tries to win a few games of cards. And if that cute Ensign Davis continues to sit next to him in the mess, well, Crashdown's not going to argue.

Same as it ever was.

-end-