Entry tags:

gaius baltar, willow rosenburg

Rebirth [Willow]

Close your eyes, go to sleep,
Baby's in the cradle counting sheep.
Climb up to your house of dreams,
Baby's in the cradle fast asleep.

"Should I die before I wake..." His voice was raspy, crawling up from the back of his throat.

On his face he wore the expression of a man void of life. Like a prisoner in line for the airlock. Downtrodden. Degraded. Lacking of sentiment. He tore the bedding from the brig's mattress into long strips. The ripping of the fabric echoed against the cold metal walls, but the guard was on the other side of the door, pretending he couldn't hear. Six appeared beside him in her red dress. But Gaius seemed to have no interest in the sultry way in which she sat beside him, with her legs spread just enough to spark curiosity, or in the low cut, bust revealing top that needed little force to break her cleavage free of its thin strapped hold. There was concern on her face.

"Sorry," he mumbled. "Improvising."

"You're doing the right thing, Gaius," she comforted, a delicate hand placed on his bicep to encourage him. Then she drew her fingers through his hair, tucking the longer strands back behind his ear.

"Yes," he replied, almost as if on auto-pilot. He tied the last knot into his handmade noose, stood up, and fastened the rope around one of the crossbeams. Then he slipped the loop around his neck.

He stood there for a moment and it was as if he'd suddenly awoke from a dream. He awoke from a dream and found himself in the nightmare that was reality. Up until this point it had been difficult for him to differentiate between imagination and truth, but now he knew. This was real. And if he was wrong, if he wasn't one of the Final Five, then he was going to die. And no God or Gods would be there to save him. Not this time.

"Wait, wait a minute," he stammered. He was second guessing himself. He was second guessing her. "I need some time to think this through."

"Too late, Gaius," Six replied, leaning forward to place a light kiss on his right cheek. "It's time to learn the truth."

She kicked the cot out from beneath him. He fell.

He remembered struggling for a few agonizing seconds, his legs kicking beneath him in futile attempts to reach the ground, his hands reaching up to his neck, trying to slip a finger or two between the noose and his throat. But she wouldn't let him. Six was there to thwart every attempt he made at saving himself. She wanted him to die. And she wanted him to suffer while he did so. All the while whispering in his ear that it was alright, that it was all part of God's plan. That God wouldn't let him die because he was God's Chosen One.

Then everything went dark.

Close your eyes, go to sleep,
Baby's in the cradle counting sheep.
Climb up to your house of dreams,
Baby's in the cradle fast asleep.

He woke up in water. At first he was floating with his face just beneath the surface, then he stretched forward to taking a gasping breath of air. His hair was matted to his cheeks and forehead and he struggled as though someone had just been drowning him.

"That's it, Gaius," Six whispered from above. "Deep breaths. Deep breaths."

You've been reborn, Gaius. You're one of them. You always knew you were different. You always knew you were special, his subconscious spoke to him. But when he opened his eyes and took a look around him (expecting to see the monochromatic color scheme of a Cylon resurrection room,) he was sorely disappointed. He was in a fountain, not in a resurrection bath. It was water, not the sticky goo that made up the partially biological material the Cylon bodies wallowed in, waiting for a download from one of their deceased predecessors. Water was spitting out of an angel statue at the center of the fountain, splashing him in the face. A few pedestrians looked at him and giggled, but Gaius wasn't concerned with them. Instead he looked up to Six, now dressed in a two piece blue dress that had the makings of a bathing suit top and shawl wrap skirt. He could see all the way up to where her thigh met her pelvis and he was relatively certain that she wasn't wearing any--

"I always told you to have faith, Gaius," she said, crossing her legs to distract his view.

"What? Where am I?"

He slowly sat up in the fountain, getting a better view of his surroundings. The fountain was centered in a pathway in front of a large building labeled The City Convention Center. Numerous people seemed to be heading to that building, briskly walking down the sidewalk. Gaius furrowed his brow and stared upward. Buildings. Skyscrapers. Parks.

"Is this ... Earth?"

Six snickered and stretched out on the edge of the fountain, her vibrantly blonde hair sprawling out at the sides of her face.

"Oh, Gaius. Do you think God would make it that easy for you?"


[Occurs thirty-three minutes before The Meeting]