TM 169 - Fragile
Mar. 13th, 2007 02:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
arrow_of_apollo169 - Fragile
When I was a kid, my grandfather used to have this gold pen and pencil set. It wasn't expensive or fancy, just a nominal gift from the Caprican Bar Association on one of his anniversaries, but he never used it. On his desk, a leather cup was always filled with regular wood-and-graphite pencils, and that's usually what was in his hand, as well.
I never questioned it, figuring that "it's just Grandpa". And then when I was older and he received another set as a gift, I had to ask. My grandfather told me that before every time he walked into the courtroom, he would snap one of those pencils in half. It was his way of symbolizing a breaking of preconceptions.
It's always stuck with me, but it wasn't my first lesson about things breaking. About how everything breaks.
William and Carolanne Adama were, to most of their friends in the Fleet, a picture-perfect military couple. But it turned out that it couldn't take the strain of being pulled apart, further and further. It snapped, finally. It broke.
Well Dad, we had four walls. But stability? My Gods, you knew what mom was like. I mean, the mood swings? It's why you left her.
When Zak died, I had my grief and I knew my father had his, but I was too angry and too busy blaming him for what I thought was a waste of my brother's life, chasing after Dad's approval. Our relationship broke, too.
I don't have anything to say. My orders said report here and participate in the ceremony, so I'm here. That's it. Wasn't anything in my orders about having a heart to heart chat with the old man.
Then the world itself got broken by the Cylons, and we've spent two years trying to pick up the pieces and go on with humanity.
Kara's Viper was destroyed, turned from a whole, fire-breathing machine and its fire-breathing pilot into an explosion of debris and flame. It was broken not by cannon fire or missile, but by the planet's invisible hand, and by something inside of my friend Kara that I'm pretty sure was broken, too.
Her identity as a steely-eyed Viper jock is the only thing keeping her together... Her ship's in pieces.
I can't remember now how many fractures Sam ended up with in his leg when he fell off of that Viper. I called Maggie "Starbuck" in front of the whole frakking pilot corps, so I doubt I'm anything close to whole myself. We're all a little broken now. I just think Sam's the one without the military to fall back on to keep him together.
There's a feeling I have these days... that there are lots of other things about to break. That Baltar's trial is going to push and pull and press on the people of this fleet and their hearts like nothing ever has before, not even New Caprica. Captain Kelly of all people could have killed two of my pilots and Gods know how many of the deck crew with his sabotage. And he still stood there in that room, listening to me be CAG and Chief be worried and Helo be calm and Racetrack be spooked and Cally be hysterical and Athena be pissed and didn't say a godsdamn word.
I need something to break, though, and it's not Kelly's head and it's not my bones and it's not my Viper. What I really wish I had right now was a pencil.
Something has to happen, soon. The pressure and the pull of "Major Lee Adama" is starting to crack me, little by little, like a pressure leak. The thing about pressure leaks, though, is that they can stay small and slow and kill you by inches, or they can turn explosive.
This thing, this case, this defending of Gaius Baltar... I don't know what it's doing to me. Following Lampkin around, a man who is clearly either a genius of the highest order or a complete psychotic, is putting me in the most difficult and confusing position of my life. He's a liar and a manipulator and I can't ever tell what those sunglasses are hiding, and whether seeing his eyes means truth or not. And I can't even stand Baltar. But what he's doing... what we have been doing... I don't know.
All I know is that something has to change, and soon. I need to do something before Lee Adama breaks, too, and I force people like Dee and my father to have to pick up the pieces. I took, I think, a small step to doing something, but I'm still not sure if it was the right thing to do or if I was being manipulated, too. Either way, I did it, and it was a first step.
And don't ask me why, and definitely don't ask me where it leads, but I think I know the right next step. Gods forgive me if I'm not right. Gods help me if I am.
(763, not including direct quotes)
When I was a kid, my grandfather used to have this gold pen and pencil set. It wasn't expensive or fancy, just a nominal gift from the Caprican Bar Association on one of his anniversaries, but he never used it. On his desk, a leather cup was always filled with regular wood-and-graphite pencils, and that's usually what was in his hand, as well.
I never questioned it, figuring that "it's just Grandpa". And then when I was older and he received another set as a gift, I had to ask. My grandfather told me that before every time he walked into the courtroom, he would snap one of those pencils in half. It was his way of symbolizing a breaking of preconceptions.
It's always stuck with me, but it wasn't my first lesson about things breaking. About how everything breaks.
William and Carolanne Adama were, to most of their friends in the Fleet, a picture-perfect military couple. But it turned out that it couldn't take the strain of being pulled apart, further and further. It snapped, finally. It broke.
Well Dad, we had four walls. But stability? My Gods, you knew what mom was like. I mean, the mood swings? It's why you left her.
When Zak died, I had my grief and I knew my father had his, but I was too angry and too busy blaming him for what I thought was a waste of my brother's life, chasing after Dad's approval. Our relationship broke, too.
I don't have anything to say. My orders said report here and participate in the ceremony, so I'm here. That's it. Wasn't anything in my orders about having a heart to heart chat with the old man.
Then the world itself got broken by the Cylons, and we've spent two years trying to pick up the pieces and go on with humanity.
Kara's Viper was destroyed, turned from a whole, fire-breathing machine and its fire-breathing pilot into an explosion of debris and flame. It was broken not by cannon fire or missile, but by the planet's invisible hand, and by something inside of my friend Kara that I'm pretty sure was broken, too.
Her identity as a steely-eyed Viper jock is the only thing keeping her together... Her ship's in pieces.
I can't remember now how many fractures Sam ended up with in his leg when he fell off of that Viper. I called Maggie "Starbuck" in front of the whole frakking pilot corps, so I doubt I'm anything close to whole myself. We're all a little broken now. I just think Sam's the one without the military to fall back on to keep him together.
There's a feeling I have these days... that there are lots of other things about to break. That Baltar's trial is going to push and pull and press on the people of this fleet and their hearts like nothing ever has before, not even New Caprica. Captain Kelly of all people could have killed two of my pilots and Gods know how many of the deck crew with his sabotage. And he still stood there in that room, listening to me be CAG and Chief be worried and Helo be calm and Racetrack be spooked and Cally be hysterical and Athena be pissed and didn't say a godsdamn word.
I need something to break, though, and it's not Kelly's head and it's not my bones and it's not my Viper. What I really wish I had right now was a pencil.
Something has to happen, soon. The pressure and the pull of "Major Lee Adama" is starting to crack me, little by little, like a pressure leak. The thing about pressure leaks, though, is that they can stay small and slow and kill you by inches, or they can turn explosive.
This thing, this case, this defending of Gaius Baltar... I don't know what it's doing to me. Following Lampkin around, a man who is clearly either a genius of the highest order or a complete psychotic, is putting me in the most difficult and confusing position of my life. He's a liar and a manipulator and I can't ever tell what those sunglasses are hiding, and whether seeing his eyes means truth or not. And I can't even stand Baltar. But what he's doing... what we have been doing... I don't know.
All I know is that something has to change, and soon. I need to do something before Lee Adama breaks, too, and I force people like Dee and my father to have to pick up the pieces. I took, I think, a small step to doing something, but I'm still not sure if it was the right thing to do or if I was being manipulated, too. Either way, I did it, and it was a first step.
And don't ask me why, and definitely don't ask me where it leads, but I think I know the right next step. Gods forgive me if I'm not right. Gods help me if I am.
(763, not including direct quotes)
