The Son Also Rises

287 - Prison

They won't let me wash the blood off my hands.

All right, they're not going to let me go to godsdamn sickbay so I can be there with my father while he's fighting for his frakking life. Tigh's being an ass and trying to be a commanding officer, and I should expect that from him. All right, they're going to throw me in hack, probably for the little time left on my misbegotten military career. I was expecting that after what I did for President Roslin.

But I've got my frakking father's blood on my hands. Frak, my arms are red almost to the godsdamn elbows and they still won't frakking let me wash it off!

It's not like I haven't seen the inside of a brig before. You're not friends with Kara Thrace and not occasionally get a remind what it's like behind bars. But it's different. Everything's smaller. Colder. Closer in. Somewhere on this tin can, my father is taking what might be his last breaths through lungs that might be shredded by some frakking toaster's bullets, and I can't even be there to watch him die.

President Roslin in the cell next door keeps wondering out loud how the Old Man is doing. She's worried, I can see it. More than that, I can hear it in her voice and I don't think I've ever heard Laura Roslin this shaken up.

And wouldn't you frakking know it, she can't stop staring at my hands.

Neither can I.

It's dry now, red turned almost black, flaking off at the edges. I have my father's blood on my hands, and all I'm thinking about are the things I can't tell him. I can't tell him how sorry I am that I had to disobey Tigh's orders, but that I'm not sorry I did. I can't tell him how much I've come to understand and appreciate the man he is and the person he was, and how grateful I am for the things that I think he was starting to understand about me.

I can't tell him I'd never leave, either.

Sitting down on the hard steel bench, I don't know what's going to happen next. All I can guess is that it's going to get a hell of a lot worse before it gets better.

(386)

276 - Are you an only child? Write about your siblings or lack thereof.

( Contains slight spoilers for episode 4x20, 'Daybreak, Pt. 2', the series finale )

(581)

What do you get a man with his own battlestar?

230 - Black and white

I can't tell you how many times I watched it. Fifty? Way too few. Five hundred? Maybe not that many. Maybe so.

I asked one of my flight instructors once why gun camera footage was always in black and white. He said something about recording and file compression, and things you can see well in contrast. I just always thought it would be better, if you're trying to figure out what happened during a fight or review your flying, to be able to see the scene as it actually happened.

Now I'm damn glad I couldn't.

( Repeat viewings )

(343)

219 - Headlines

Battlestar Galactica to be Decommissioned

It was the lead story in the Fleet newsletter a month before the Cylon attack. I was actually on leave, sitting in a sidewalk cafe on Picon and sipping my coffee, trying very hard not to look like a soldier on leave. In retrospect, I was doing a horrible job, considering my reading material, but I guess that's not even the littlest bit important now.

( History )

(344)

Sorry for the lateness, Dad. But hopefully it was a good day.

195 - What makes someone a hero? What makes someone a villain?

((Set directly after the events of episode 3x08, "Hero"))

[Private entry]

They gave my father a medal today.

The Colonial Medal of Distinction was presented on this day to Rear Admiral William Adama on behalf of the grateful remnants of the human race in recognition of the rescue of tens of thousands from New Caprica and for forty-five years of "courageous service to the Colonial Fleet". President Roslin called him a hero, and I can't possibly find it in myself to sit here and disagree.

( I can't help but wonder how much it weighed )

(422, not counting direct quote)

171 - What is the biggest mistake you've made in a relationship?

I let him do it.

Sometimes, when something terrible happens, people look back at the circumstances that led up that something and think to themselves, well, we never saw it coming. There weren't any clues to the way things turned out, no great big flashing signs that said "BAD IDEA" or "TURN BACK NOW". A person steps of the curb to cross the street and gets hit by a speeding truck, or one day your doctor sits you down and tells you that you've somehow contracted a mysterious illness. We can comfort ourselves with knowing that there had been no way to prepare for it.

But what about when you see the flashing signs, and the clues are everywhere around you, in plain sight? What about when you see the truck coming? You would think that a person would do something about it, right? They'd stop or turn around, they'd stay the hell on the sidewalk and not get crushed. And if it was someone else you saw the danger heading straight toward, you'd shout out to them, wouldn't you? Maybe even jump out and try to save them?

( I should have known )

(923)