TM 242 - Bearer of Bad News

[arrow_of_apollo]

242 - Write about a time that you were the bearer of bad news.

"Your father's waiting for you in his study."

When I was a kid, those were the most chilling words ever spoken, and my mother always delivered them with the kind of heavy portent that usually accompanies Oracular pronouncements and eulogies. I couldn't stand hearing those words any more than I could stand the long walk across the room from the door to the huge and heavy wood desk. My father would take off his glasses, set them down, fold his hands and wait.


I always knew why I was being sent to my father's study. As you'd guess, it typically had something to do with my getting in trouble. Maybe I'd gotten into a fight at school, or broken a flower pot in the backyard tossing the Pyramid ball around. When my parents got divorced, the little boy inside of me was glad that I'd never again have to make that walk and hear those words.

After the Cylon attack, I came to enjoy coming to the Admiral's quarters for meetings and talks. My father and I, in the middle of this insanity, found a kind of rapport that we had never managed before everything ended. Sometimes, I would come bearing a stack half as tall as I was of paperwork. And other times, it would just be to chat, very often over a glass of something strong.

I knew the meeting would be tense when I walked into it. Baltar's trial was in full swing, and Saul Tigh had taken the stand, drunk to the gills and been broken down, not that he needed Lampkin's help. But I was hoping that my father and I would be able to maintain our professionalism.

He blamed me for Tigh, accused me of feeding Lampkin privileged information about the Colonel and his wife and New Caprica-- things I couldn't have known. He called me a liar. He called me a coward.

My hand was up and my fingers on my wings before I realized it, but even when the gravity of what I was about to do hit me, I didn't hesitate. I knew damn well what I was saying and what I was telling my father, without equivocation. And I took those wings off and put them on that huge and heavy desk, standing my ground.

That was how I told my father that I was resigning my commission.

And now I find I'm afraid of that walk again.


(402, not counting direct quotes)

Comments

[cpo-galen-tyrol.livejournal.com]

I believe you didn't know about Tigh's wife. You wouldn't be that cruel to watch what was happening to him without trying to stop it if you knew what was going to happen. And if I'd been there when Sam said... when Tigh made the decision... when it happened, I would have done everything in my power to see it didn't happen.

Then again, there's a lot of things you don't know about New Caprica. There's a lot we keep even from each other. Hell, I think of everyone, I only know everything that happened to Cally, and even she doesn't know everything that happened to me. No one knows what happened to Starbuck or Roslin, Zarek.

That sort of pain. It destroys. And when it's cheapened the way Lampkin cheapened it, it doesn't just cheapen Colonel Tigh's pain. It cheapens the pain of every last person who made the decision to hang on down there.

That's why I know you didn't know about it. You might not be able to understand, but you wouldn't cheapen it.

[arrow-of-apollo.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Tyrol.

Lampkin's... effective. I wouldn't have done that, you're right. I have a lot of respect for Tigh. But Lampkin did what he thought was necessary, the kind of decision we've all had to make. I made the same one questioning the President.

But maybe now we know "necessary" isn't enough of a reason.

[cpo-galen-tyrol.livejournal.com]

So long as you realize we didn't do what we did down there for the hell of it, I can see that you didn't do what you did to the President for the hell of it.

Necessary's enough of a reason at the time. If it wasn't, it wouldn't have been done, would it?

[arrow-of-apollo.livejournal.com]

Fair enough.

True. It's always a hell of a lot easier to question decisions after they're made.

[burnandrave.livejournal.com]

We're all afraid of having to face your father in his office.

Hey, Lee.

[arrow-of-apollo.livejournal.com]

It's just a good idea to avoid it at all costs.

Kara. How are you?

[burnandrave.livejournal.com]

I agree.

I'm--well. You know. As good as the harbinger of death can be expected.

[arrow-of-apollo.livejournal.com]

Good, that's... that's good.

[burnandrave.livejournal.com]

There something you want to say to me, Lee?

[arrow-of-apollo.livejournal.com]

I just wanted to make sure things were all right. They haven't been lately, for anyone.

[burnandrave.livejournal.com]

Yeah.

How are you? I haven't seen you much.

Still wearing a suit? ::smirks::

I can't believe they made you president. I'm not trying to sound like a bitch, Lee, but you're--you're Apollo. You're a Viper pilot.

That'd be like making me an Admiral.

[laura-muse.livejournal.com]

Would you believe there were times I was afraid of having to face your father in his office? Some of them were more recent than you might think, Mr. Adama.

You once told me that you thought it was never a mistake to follow your heart. I've come to believe that it's never a mistake to follow your conscience, even if your conscience might tell you something different than your father's might tell him, or mine might tell me.

OOC: Welcome back, by the way! You were missed!

[arrow-of-apollo.livejournal.com]

*smiles* I am never surprised when anyone finds my father imposing, Madam President, I guarantee you.

I believe those are both true.

OOC: Thank you!

[laura-muse.livejournal.com]

You ever pick a fight with him when he's been drinking?

If not, I wouldn't recommend it.

[arrow-of-apollo.livejournal.com]

Oh Gods no, I'm not crazy. *chuckles*

[laura-muse.livejournal.com]

Maybe you just haven't been raring for a fight that badly.

*contemplates* Can I ask you something that's absolutely none of my business?

[arrow-of-apollo.livejournal.com]

I get into enough fights with the Quorum. Fills my quota.

Ask away.

[wants-to-resist.livejournal.com]

He's pretty frakking scary when he wants to be, Lee.

[arrow-of-apollo.livejournal.com]

No arguments here.

[number-eight.livejournal.com]

I'm scared everytime I walk in there, too, these days.

[arrow-of-apollo.livejournal.com]

He always does scare family the most.

[number-eight.livejournal.com]

You consider me family? To him?

[arrow-of-apollo.livejournal.com]

Dad likes to adopt, whether he knows it or not.

[number-eight.livejournal.com]

So, that makes me your adopted sister, then? Bet you'd never think of that. A Cylon sister.

[arrow-of-apollo.livejournal.com]

No, that might actually be the most normal, compared to the reckless, kind of crazy one that was engaged to my brother and the one I married.