FIC: Excerpts From A Year In God's Land (BSG)

[bjewelled]

Title: Excerpts From A Year In God's Land
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica
Note: The title does not refer to some longer fic. ;) I was experimenting with this shorter, snappier style, in the vague hope of making it a shorter and snappier story. Apparently I'm pathologically incapable of writing less than 10,000 words, however.

~*~

The Two lay on his back, the faint dampness of the grass chilling him slightly, and looked up at the stars. They seemed so far off and distant now, and wavered unnaturally with the distortion created by the atmosphere. He thought of the Centurions, wandering the stars, exploring, discovering, revelling in light and data, and tried not to imagine what that was like.

Laughter drifted through the night air to his ears, cutting through the sound of the waves of the nearby sea against the shore. The camp, temporary for the moment, though plans were afoot to make it more permanent, was aglow with firelight and the sound of voices raised in a way that the Two realised he hadn't heard from either Humans or Cylons... ever.

He was envious of the Centurions, he admitted to himself. He would never again feel the flow of data through his fingers like an extension of himself, but there was no doubt that this planet was the work of God, and their arrival here equally His will.

He sighed, and tried to guess which star was which in the sky. It was awfully easy to tell himself that God's will was for his own good. It was harder to feel it.

There were soft footsteps approaching. The Two ignored them until a blonde haired and smiling face appeared over his head, blocking off his view of the stars. She was a Six, though she'd taken the name Fran after meeting an engineer during the Galactica repairs with that name, and liking it.

"Are you coming?" Fran asked, crouching next to him. "Aren't you hungry?"

"A little," he admitted, reluctantly. "But... it's meat."

Fran blinked at him. "Yes."

"From an animal."

"I know where meat comes from."

He pushed himself up slightly on his elbows. Fran leaned back to avoid their heads colliding. "Don't you find that strange?"

Fran sighed. "Yes, but it's all new and strange, isn't it? You'll just have to adapt. Now, come on. The others have been asking where you've gone. They were half worried you'd walked off the cliff."

They had set up camp near the bank of a river delta that fed into the sea. If one were to head north, the land slowly rose up until it abruptly dropped away in a cliff. Much time had been spent by Human parents warning their offspring not to go near the cliff, because it was dangerous. There had been talk of moving the camp, but the land seemed fertile, and the appeal of a source of food in the sea to augment what they were able to hunt in the surrounding valley was enough to convince the group to stay put.

Fran held out her hand expectantly. The Two stifled a sigh and took it, and allowed himself to be led back towards the group. He even took the bowl of rough stew that was offered, though he pushed it around with the utensil, and didn't eat it at all.

~*~

Their particular group, a mixture of Humans and Cylons weighted towards the Humans in numbers, had been dropped in the northern hemisphere. The Two would have been able to recall the exact coordinates if he tried, but after working out where they had been dropped and how far they had walked from the drop site, he realised that it didn't matter. They were limited to how far they could move by foot now, and planetary surveys and topology maps were pointless. It was enough to know that they were on the western coast of a continent that was green and lush, and fairly temperate, though the Two found it perpetually cooler than he liked.

While there had been tension between the two races initially, the Two found it fading quickly. He could sit in the central point of their little settlement, where a large firepit had been dug out, and a few roughly hewn benches set up nearby, awkwardly fashioned from local trees, and watch those who had previously been enemies mingle as friends. The benches were unfinished but sturdy. One of their number had been a carpenter on his native Tauron, and he now had a small group learning the useful craft from him, including a Two and two Eights. Or Mark, Helena and Rian, they were calling themselves now.

It was the taking of names that seemed to make it easier for the Humans to accept them. Slowly the boundaries started to collapse, and he watched as Cylons and Humans set to building their new life together, laughing as they tried to figure out how in the world to actually build houses so that they could stop sleeping in tents, or conspiring together to work out the best way of fishing with the limited equipment they had. A Six, Kira, was babysitting a group of children while their mothers ran errands.

One night, as they sat around the fire, a nightly ritual that Fran forced him to endure, citing the fact that it was clearly building the community, making it stronger, one of the Humans, a man named Joshua, reverently brought out a device that the Two failed to recognise as a musical instrument until Joshua ran his fingers over the strings and a few fluttering notes came from it.

An Eight, Samantha, clapped her hands with delight. "What is that?"

The Two thought she must have been foolish not to download all their available information on Humans before they abandoned their Basestar, and tried to suppress his snort of scorn, covering it by sipping at the tepid tea that was all they were able to make for now. Joshua explained to her that it was a musical instrument, how to play it, and then held it out to her.

Samantha looked stunned. "But... what if I break it? It's not like we have a lot of replacement strings..."

"Then you'll just have to not break it," Joshua said, with a wry smile and a twinkle in his eye. "Music is meant to be shared, young lady."

Music had never been part of the Cylon, the Two thought, and stared at the surface of his tea.

"I know you."

The Two started slightly. The voice had come from the man sitting next to him. A Human, Louis Hoshi, whose brief stint of Admiralty had taken place aboard the Basestar. The Two knew him, but he had rather been counting on the fact that Humans had no real way of telling them apart.

"Do you?" he said, playing ignorant.

Hoshi smiled slightly. He held a battered tin mug in his hands, with tea as untouched as the Two's own. "I didn't realise at first, but... you were on the Basestar while I was there. I remember you."

The Two remembered as well. He'd thought the Human had looked a little overwhelmed and almost ill as he had strode into the command centre of the Basestar, thrown when one of the Centurions had moved aside to let him have a better look at one of the readouts, which it had translated into something understandable for him. After a short time, he had withdrawn from the deck and the Two, driven by something he didn't quite understand, had followed him.

He had found Hoshi in a side corridor, not immediately visible from the main path into command, leaning against the wall with his eyes closed and breathing deeply. He must have made some sound because Hoshi's eyes came open, and, seeing that he wasn't alone, he straightened.

"Are... you alright?" It wasn't a question one normally needed to ask of Cylons. The Two had never really had much contact with Humans. He had the memories of his brothers, up to the point where they had lost their download ability, but he himself had never interacted with them. During the occupation of New Caprica, he had remained on the Basestars, content to dwell there.

"Fine," Hoshi said, and his smile seemed a little forced. "Of course, it's all a little new. Somewhat overwhelming, you see?"

"Of course," the Two answered, though he didn't truly understand.

Hoshi had nodded abruptly and strode past the Two, returning to command. The Two hesitated, and then followed, with one small diversion. Hoshi didn't say anything as the Two put a glass of water in front of him, but he offered the Two a warm smile before he went back to listening to the explanation of Cyclon DRADIS that an Eight was giving him.

Yes, the two remembered Hoshi alright. "I thought Humans couldn't tell us apart," he said, trying to make it sound like he was teasing rather than explaining what he'd been relying on.

"I... ah... couldn't at first." Hoshi admitted. It was hard to tell in the dim light from the fire, but he seemed to colour slightly. "But it gets more obvious over time. Samantha moves her hands while she talks. Rian keeps them behind her back. Michael has a slight tilt to his mouth that Jorg doesn't have. And you..." Hoshi shrugged slightly, looking embarrassed, "You have a different look in your eye to the others."

"You're very observant."

"It's easier with Yusera." The Six had cut her hair close to her scalp, where it stuck out in little tufts. It was so unlike the normal elegant grace of the Sixes that it had given the Two rather a surprise when he'd seen it.

Hoshi looked at him closely, smiling slightly, "What's your name?"

And that was what the Two knew bothered Fran more than anything. He hadn't chosen a name, and didn't want to. He stared towards the fire, where Samantha's off-key strumming could be heard, and pretended not to have heard the question.

~*~

"I'm worried about you," Fran said, one day, as she sat next to him on the cliff, the two of them engaged in weaving tough dried river reeds into little baskets. Their settlement was growing. The tents still made up the majority of the buildings, but they were slowly building wooden huts. There were only two completed ones, and they both housed children for the moment. As they were starting to get the hang of building, the process was getting faster, which was a good job, since the days were starting to get shorter, and the Two didn't want to get caught outside in the winter with only a canvas tent for protection.

"There's nothing wrong with me," he told her, pulling apart the reeds he'd spent the better part of half an hour weaving together as he realised he'd messed up the whole process. He was terrible at basket weaving.

"Hmph," Fran said, looking skeptical. "So the fact that you barely eat enough to keep a child alive is 'nothing' is it? And besides..." She took advantage of his distraction with the reeds, and slipped her hand into his.

Instantly, she saw what he saw, and he was all too aware of her disapproval. "You're projecting all the time," she said, and looked around at the place she could now see. They were in the hallways of a Basestar, the grey corridors without ornament, and stars visible through one transparent wall. "Places you'd rather be, and can never go back to. It's not healthy."

He pulled his hand away from her, and glared at her.

"You haven't chosen a name," she continued, "You don't want to be here."

"Been talking to Sasha have we?" he said, between gritted teeth. Sasha Mons had been a psychiatrist in the Human fleet. He spent most of his time these days who were finding the adjustment to planetary living to be hard. Mostly his patients were Human, though he knew at least one of the Eights went to him.

"Yes," Fran said, unapologetically. "I'm worried about you, brother. We all are. We know that what happened hurt you and-"

"I don't want to talk about it," he said, pulling the reeds apart with unnecessary viciousness. Eventually they lay scattered in his lap, and he couldn't destroy them further. He tried to concentrate on starting the painstaking process of getting them woven together again. "How many times must I-"

Fran halted him with a gentle hand on his arm, though she made no move to enter his projection this time. "I'm sorry. I know. I just..." Frustrated welled up in her voice, and her fingers tightened on his arm. "We love you, you know that. We don't want to see you waste away, here, in God's land."

Only the Twos matched and exceeded the Sixes in their piety. But this particular Two found that he could not summon up the strength to believe. He ached when he thought of the stars he would never see again, and he felt disloyal for his very thoughts. "Don't worry," he said, "I don't intend to die anytime soon."

Fran tried to smile, but she didn't look at all convinced.

~*~

It was the responsibility of everyone in their still unnamed settlement to gather food, and that meant that hunting parties needed to be formed and sent out on a regular basis to augment what they were able to catch in the river and sea. The task rotated between the men of the camp, and the Two was called upon eventually, just like anyone else. There were five of them in total. Another Two, Stark, and three Humans: Jonas Rush, Fin Dora and Louis Hoshi. It was the first time that Fin Dora had gone out hunting, barely older than a child. He was awkward and kept stumbling while the older ones kept their footing. It prompted good natured ribbing from Jonas, to which Hoshi and Stark chuckled faintly. The Two found he couldn't join in, feeling out of place, and so he just kept his eyes on the undergrowth, looking for a good place to set a snare for the small furry animals that had what the others described as 'tasy and succulent' meat on their bones. He still found the whole process of eating the flesh of animals nauseating. He imagining eating the Raiders or Basestars, since they seemed to be on the same level of dumb intelligence, and he found he didn't care for the idea at all.

After a few hours walking and catching a few of the little animals, which the Two tried to mask his distaste at stuffing into a sack, they set down for a quick rest break. Hoshi sat next to the Two, much to his surprise.

"You're very quiet," he said, in a low voice, as Jonas congratulated Fin on snaring two animals, while Stark looked on, amused. It seemed to be to make up for the earlier teasing, and Fin flushed bright red.

"Don't have much to say," the Two said, looking down at the compacted and baked grain that was their portable trail food. They hadn't quite figured out how to make bread yet, some of the Humans complained. But it was edible, and hadn't hopped or thought at any point, and so the Two could force it down. Some days he thought he only did so to keep Fran happy.

"You don't talk much to the other Cylons either," Hoshi said, tilting his head towards Stark in illustration. "You keep to yourself."

"I... didn't think you'd noticed," the Two admitted. Their settlement was nearly a hundred people. For Hoshi, who, as a former if briefly lived Admiral, had been accorded some sort of respect and leadership amongst the Humans, to have noticed the activities of a single Two, or his lack thereof, was surprising.

"There's not that many of us," Hoshi said, apparently overhearing the Two's thoughts and refuting them. The Two scowled slightly.

"There's nothing wrong with me," he said, aware he sounded defensive.

Hoshi tilted his head. "I didn't say there was," he said. Then, after a long moment, said, "Is there something wrong?"

The Two's scowl deepened, and he opened his mouth to repeat the objection, but found that nothing came out. His throat closed up, and he felt a slight and confusing burning in his eyes. He started to shake his head, tried to think of something to choke out to get the man to leave him alone when Jonas interrupted with,

"Hey, I thought I saw some deer tracks. We should check it out."

Hoshi looked away from the Two, and, in that moment, the tension was broken. He found he could clear his throat and speak again.

"Yeah," he said, "We should check that out."

Hoshi looked at him oddly, but then agreed, and the party set out on its hunt once again.

~*~

It was the Two who heard it, a fact he would later put down to the fact that he was silent while the others were talking amongst themselves. He hushed the others, halting them in their trek through the woodlands that covered and surrounded the settlement valley.

"Did you hear that?" he whispered.

The others fell silent, listening carefully. After a moment, the Two heard the sound that had garnered his attention. Whimpering, Human sounding. The Two glanced at the others, seeing jocularity flee in the face of concern. Without a word, they set off in the direction the sound was coming from.

They'd devoted a certain amount of time to mapping the area surrounding the settlement, and they knew that there were placed where the bedrock showed through the forest floor, creating occasional drops of a few meters. Not very high at all, but if the unwary were to trip over a root in the wrong place, it would be easy to take a tumble. The Two guessed that had been what happened. He wondered if someone had wandered away from the settlement, gotten lost, and then become stuck when they had no way to call for help. In the bustle of a busy day of building and cooking and doing all the things necessary for surviving on the skin of an alien world, someone could have wandered off.

It turned out that the Two was mostly right, and also utterly wrong.

Someone had wandered away from their group, but it wasn't one of theirs. Instead, it was one of the natives, a bipedal hominid with the slightly paler skin of the northern climes. He was dressed in rough leather and cloth, and was very young. In fact, the Two realised, he was clearly a child. His leg was also clearly broken, lying at an odd angle. The child was crying with distress, and had been for some time, if the messy track of tears on his face was any indication.

"We need to help him," the Two said, and heads swivelled towards him. He felt awkward, embarrassed, and was thankful when Hoshi said,

"He's right. We can't just leave a child out here. He can't walk, and might die without some sort of help."

"What are we supposed to do with him?" Stark asked, frowning.

"We'll take him back with us," Hoshi said, but the Two wasn't listening.

While Hoshi and Stark had been speaking, he'd gone up to the boy - and that was all he was - and crouched down next to him. The boy's sniffling trailed off as he looked up at him. The Two extended a hand.

"It's going to be alright," he said, trying to sound soothing.

The boy sniffed once, twice, and then threw himself into the Two's arms, sobbing.

~*~

They took the boy back to the village, and he was fussed over by the few who had some training in medicine, and before long his leg was splinted, and he was dossed with a small amount of the preciously tiny amount of painkillers they had left to them. It let the boy sleep, nestled by the fire under some blankets.

"What do we do with him?" someone was asking, "We don't know where his people are. Aren't they nomads? They might have already left the area."

"Not if they're missing a child," Hoshi said, firmly. People were gathered around the long tables that had slowly been built and placed in the gathering area. They were better built than the benches, as the carpenter and his apprentices gained more skill. The Two sat by the boy, watching him quietly and excluding himself from the discussion. "They'll be searching for him."

"And if they find him here? And think we stole him? They might be aggressive. They might attack!"

There was frightened murmuring that ran through the assembled crowd.

"We shouldn't assume the worse!" Fran spoke. As Hoshi was a figur of leadership amongst the Humans, so Fran had become for the Cylons. She had an attitude that the Two had overheard describing as 'relentless mothering', which Fran had taken as a great compliment, though the Two privately thought that it had not been intended as such. "We have helped the boy. They will see this."

"And if they don't?" another voice, a Two, strident, and also slightly afraid.

Hoshi drew himself up slightly, catching the Two's peripheral vision. He turned his head to see a steely look on Hoshi's face, and he realised that he had almost forgotten the man had ever been a military officer. "I don't want our first meeting with the natives to be violent," he said, firmly, "But we will protect ourselves."

~*~

"You're good at that," the Two said to him, later, when Hoshi had sat next to him on the bench by the native boy long after the sun had gone down and people had retreated to the huts to sleep. There were a lot more of them now, and they had worked out to use river mud to cover the gaps left by the planks and insulate the buildings.

They had been seated in silence so long that his words apparently startled Hoshi. "Sorry?" he said, apparently confused.

"Reassuring people," the Two clarified. "You're good at it."

Hoshi smiled faintly. "I suppose I'm getting used to it."

"No," the Two said, firmly, "You're good at it."

He stared at the native boy, who barely stirred in his sleep.

"Do you want children?" he asked Hoshi, feeling like he had to break the silence.

Hoshi gave a laugh, but it sounded less amused and more disconcerted. "Ah, um. No. Children have... never been an issue for me." He leaned backwards and stretched. "Besides, I think there are enough people around here I have to herd without worrying about children."

The Two didn't look at him. "To procreate is God's will," he said.

A pause and then, "Yes, I've heard that said."

The Two blinked rapidly. He could feel tears welling up and wasn't sure why. "I don't think I believe in God anymore."

Hoshi was silent, but the the Two felt the warmth of his hand settling on his shoulder, and he found it helped, a bit.

~*~

They sent out search parties the next day for any wandering tribes of natives, and, in the meantime, the boy was put with the other children, who treated him curiously for a moment, then chattered away to him, regardless of the fact that he clearly didn't understand. After a while, the boy seemed to accept his situation and made nonsense sounds to them in response. He was happiest when, at midday, one of the women set a bowl of food in front of him, and he tucked in with delight.

The Two had expected to spend lunch on his own, as usual, but he was surprised when Louis Hoshi sat down at the table opposite him, tearing a chunk of the flat toughened bread that they'd finally managed to make, after cultivating some of the seeds they'd brought with them from the fleet. They had arrived in the early part of the year, and so they'd just caught the edge of the growing season. He dropped half of the bread onto the Two's plate, surprising him.

"You don't eat enough," Hoshi said.

The Two rolled his eyes. "Not you as well."

Hoshi smiled at him, and used the bread to scoop up some of his food. The Two hesitated, then followed suit. It seemed impolite to turn the gift down. He expected Hoshi to try and engage him in conversation, but instead the man seemed content to sit with him and share the food, and, oddly, the Two found that it was nice having simple companionship.

It seemed too much even for Hoshi after a while though. He was watching as the Two picked all the meat out of his stew, leaving it and eating around it. "You don't like the meat."

The Two shifted awkwardly. "No."

Hoshi frowned. "You need the protein."

"I..." The Two grit his teeth. "I can't eat it. I can't. It makes me ill to even think about it."

Hoshi turned the last bit of rough bread over in his fingers. "We still have all that freeze-dried algae we brought, just in case we couldn't find enough to eat at first. Not been an issue, I know. It's enough for a hundred people for several months. For one man, it's enough for several years." Hoshi reached out, and tapped the back of the Two's hand, getting him to look at the Human properly. "Long enough to find a proper alternative, right?"

The Two found, for a moment, that he couldn't speak. "But... you'd sort that out just for me?"

"Of course," Hoshi said, like it was the simplest thing in the world. "But there is a price."

The Two felt a sinking feeling. With Humans there was always a price. "Oh?"

Hoshi gave him a patient look. "My name's Louis. That's what you have to call me."

The Two hesitated. "I still don't have a name for you to use," he said.

Hoshi... Louis... shrugged. "Names are overrated. Don't worry about it too much."

~*~

The morning two nights after they'd found the boy, there was a stir in the village. Led by one of their search teams, who looked alternatively terrified and excited, a group of natives, mostly armed with spears, but also having wicked looking stone knives in their belts, were led towards the village. There was a fearful drawing back amongst some, but others stood their ground. The Two had been clearing out the firepit when the natives arrived, and so he was perfectly placed to see Louis Hoshi and several former colonial officers emerge from the communal huts. They had kept a few firearms, carefully keeping them cleaned and ready, and keeping the ammunition just in case. They had tucked their guns into their waistbands, keeping their hands otherwise in sight. The little Human girl, Sera, who had been helping the Two gasped, and he reached out a hand and drew her closer. Just in case.

The native boy, on seeing who it was, stretched out his arms and babbled something in his simplistic speech. The natives, four men, rushed forward, startling a few of the villagers, who hurried backwards out of the way. The Two saw one of the marines reach for his weapon, but Hoshi's hand on his arm and a shake of the head stopped him. One of the native men picked the boy up, wrapping his arms around the child. One of the others looked at the rough split around his leg and plucked at it, as if to take it off.

"You shouldn't-" The Two found himself blurting the words out. The native men, and most everyone in the village, looked at him. He had been the first one to speak since the natives arrived.

"It..." He found his nerve faltering a little and he took a deep breath to steady himself. "His leg..." He tapped his own leg in demonstration. "It, uh, broke..." The men only looked confused, and the Two cast about frantically for inspiration as to how to talk to these people who didn't have proper language. His eyes set upon a twig from the fire, and he picked it up. "It broke." He tapped his leg, and then the twig, then broke the twig in half. "The splint it..." He pointed to the sticks tied to hold the boys leg straight. "It keeps it together." He wrapped his hand around the broken twig, making it straight again, and then looked anxiously to see if the men understood.

There was some thoughtful sounding grunts, and it seemed that the idea got across, because they stopped messing with the splint. After a moment, the men grunted something, and then they turned and headed away from the village. People stepped out of their way, and watched anxiously as they departed. Once the natives had gotten to the treeline and disappeared from sight, chatter arose almost immediately, loud and relieved, and the Two found he was shaking slightly.

He was nearly knocked off his feet when Fran threw her arms around him, hugging him tightly. "You're wonderful!" she squealed, and kissed him on the cheek.

It was no less than he expected from her, but then Louis came up and repeated the gesture, embracing him in a brief congratulatory hug, though he left out the kiss. "Well done," he said, "My mind went totally blank. I had no idea what to say. You did brilliantly."

The Two felt an unaccountable warmth somewhere in his stomach. "I didn't do anything, really," he demurred.

"Don't be silly," Fran said, "But you do look like you could use a drink."

Alcohol production had come very quickly after sorting out a food supply. The Two nodded. "I think I could."

~*~

They didn't need much of a reason for a party, and having successfully encountered a group of natives without anything untoward happening was apparently sufficient cause for an impromptu celebration. The children were allowed to stay up later than usual, but when their parents finally took them to bed, the remaining adults felt no compunction about drinking harder than before and getting all the more raucous for it.

The Two found himself the focus of a lot of attention, something he wasn't really comfortable with. Two of his brothers sat either side of him, Stark and Jun, who supported him wordlessly and a few of the Humans, too much alcohol swimming in their system, couldn't tell them apart and so gave up on attempts to make conversation and hail him the hero of the hour.

"We're proud of you," Stark murmured to him, during a lull in admirers.

"Very proud," Jun echoed, kissing him on the cheek.

The Two raised his head, looking across the firepit in between the mud and wood huts. He saw Louis and Fran, arms around each others waists, heads tilted towards each other, talking in low voices as they walked away from the fire. He felt a painful twist in his stomach and tried to chase it away with a swallow of thick and strong beer.

When the party died down, people drifting away from the fire that was almost gone in drunken stumbles, the Two didn't object when they gently took his hands and took him to the hut that they and a few other Twos shared. The others joined them, all the Twos in the village, and it was so much like being back home that the Two felt tears come to his eyes, and he wept.

His brothers didn't understand, but they tried their best to comfort him, all the same.

~*~

They had no idea if or when they would see the natives again. So it was a shock when several weeks later, a runner from one of the scouting parties in the woods reported that there was a small group of natives heading their way. They didn't seem aggressive, according to the reports. The group was made up of men and women, and they carried baskets with them. Louis Hoshi ordered the soldiers of the village to surreptitiously arm themselves, but to stay calm and see what happened.

It turned out, much to everyone's surprise, that they were there to trade.

The young boy they had rescued was with them. The splint was off his leg, and though he wasn't exactly running around, he seemed healthy enough, his leg healed cleanly. It was the women who seemed to lead the negotiating. Their basket, not woven with the mechanical precision that the Cylons were able to, but clearly more skillfully done, had cured leathers, some smoked meat, and a couple of more esoteric items, like pots of powdered dye made from crushed rocks that couldn't be found anywhere in the local area.

Nomads, the survey reports had said. Louis looked at the offerings, and the plump woman in warm leather and fur that fended off the autumnal chill. Then he smiled. "Let's see if we have anything these folks want."

~*~

It turned out in the end that grain was very good for trade. Being nomadic, they couldn't be staying in one place long enough to cultivate crops. Louis offered up the theory to the Two over lunch one day (which had somehow become a regular occurrence without the Two being entirely aware of the process) that they must be practiced at making such trades, since they had seemed to know what they want. Perhaps treating the boy and caring for him had proved they could be trusted, and so the natives had reached out first.

"I heard the seamstresses," Louis said, though the word was a misnomer since there were both men and women (who had been thus nicknamed and the nickname had stuck) who focused their energies on making clothes, and mostly it was with leather they had taken from food animals, since woven cloth was beyond them at the moment, "Were beside themselves. They couldn't believe we'd actually got some dye. Might be nice to see some colours other than brown for a while."

It hadn't just been grain that had been traded, but odds and ends including a couple of beaten metal pans that had become too worn for the villagers use, but the natives found to be a marvel. In the name of good relations, they'd been happily given up. Both sides had come away satisfied, it seemed, although it was rather hard to tell. All the negotiating had been done with vague grunting and a lot of pointing.

And, just to keep their new friends happy, Louis had thrown in a batch of freshly caught fish as a gift.

"If it means we don't have that stuff for dinner," he confided, "I'd have given them anything else they wanted as well."

The Two stared for a moment, then laughed out loud.

~*~

Winter came along entirely too quickly for the Two's liking. The air was crisply autumnal one day, and the next, it was bitterly cold, and the hunting parties started coming back empty handed. They'd been preparing for this for months of course. One advantage of being on the sea was that, while the distillation process was slow, they had ready access to salt to preserve their meat and food. They'd been stockpiling and storing food, wood, water, preparing for the point where they'd have to live on their supplies to get them through the winter. Intellectually, the Two knew all about winter. He even had the memories of one of his brothers who had infiltrated the colonies and endured the seasonal changes that went with planets, but he'd never really given it much thought.

He found his fingers aching as he performed fiddly tasks, and he swore colourfully using phrases he'd picked up from the ex-marines in the village. The fletching of the arrow he had been mending fluttered to the increasingly hard ground and he fumbled to pick it up again. He could have done the work indoors, where most people were dwelling, but the conditions in the huts were too cramped and humid for the Two's liking, so he endured the cold. With no hunting parties going out, mending the arrows, used since they couldn't afford to waste ammunition, was busy work, and little more.

He fiercely projected a Basestar around himself, and imagined the chill to be the cold of space.

"Don't you own any gloves?" A voice startled him out of his delusion, and the bench bounced slightly as Louis Hoshi sat down on the bench next to him, straddling it to face him. "Your hands look like they're going blue." Before the Two could say anything, Louis had taken his hands in both of his. The shock of warm skin was almost painful, and the Two sucked in a breath. Then Louis tugged his hands closer, and blew gently into their entwined grip. The warm air circulated, and the painful sensation of warmth returning to his extremities started to prick at his consciousness.

"Are you trying to catch your death?" Louis chided.

The Two rolled his eyes, fixing his gaze on their hands. "You sound like Fran."

"There are worse people to sound like." Louis grinned. "And there was a time where I wouldn't have believed I would ever say such a thing about a Cylon. I like to think we've all moved past that here, now."

True, there had been some friction in the very beginning, but as people settled into their lives alongside their Cylon companions, it had stopped seeming important who had been the enemy in the past. They all faced the same problems now, and it seemed to be a great equaliser.

"You're staying with Jun and some of the other Twos, right?" Louis's fingers moved over his own, massaging some feeling back into them. "In their hut?"

The Two nodded. He'd stayed in the small canvas tent that they'd been using since they arrived, right up to the point where it had become too cold and he'd been forced indoors to share. Their building material wasn't so plentiful just yet that they could afford to build a home for every individual Cylon who wanted to live on their own. It had also gotten too late to build anything, the ground too hard, and the wood too damp. A few people had gotten small individual spaces, much smaller than the larger communal ones. Fran was one, Louis another. A few others also had their own homes, mostly those who had been willing to build their own instead of waiting for craftsmen to get around to doing the work. Fran and Louis's huts had been built by the community, wanting to give the two reluctant leaders a gift. The Two had seen the way Louis's eyes had shone with suppressed tears when the home that was his own had been unveiled, and had been quite speechless.

"I know you like your privacy," Louis said, "If you wanted the space, you know you're always welcome to share my home." Louis barrelled on quickly, as if to prevent the Two from interrupting. "I can stay out of your way as much as you like. You'll hardly know I'm there."

"I..." The Two didn't know quite what to say, some part of him wanted to take Louis up on the offer. He loved his brothers dearly, but they were constantly trying to talk to him, to get him to open up. Being so closed off to ones own model line was unnatural, and it worried the others. Fran still made the effort to try and get him to open up, even though her life had become busier and busier as the female head of the village. The thought of Fran, in the end, was what decided him. Fran, and the memory of her and Louis at the party all those weeks ago.

"I'm fine," he said, eventually, "Really. It's alright with them. They're my brothers."

A look of disappointment flashed across Louis face, so quickly that the Two was almost certain he'd imagined it. But Louis smiled then, and blew once more on the Two's hands to make sure they were warm. The Two felt Louis's lips touch his fingers. "Alright, but if you change your mind you know where to find me." Louis let go of his hands, exposing them to the cold again and pulled something out of his pockets. A pair of fur-lined gloves landed on the table, next to the half-mended arrows. "And put those on before you catch your death."

~*~

In the end, it wasn't Louis, or even the Two himself who decided that he needed to be moved into an isolated area, it was N'Ara, their doctor.

"Pneumonia," she said, roughly, her diagnosis quick and certain. "And he's not the only one. Two others have come down as well, and I'm worried that's just the start. I want to keep them out of the general population as much as possible. We ran out of antibiotics months ago, and I'm worried that if the Cylons catch it..." She drew breath sharply, "Well, they don't have any resistance, in all likelihood. Never been ill a day in their lives."

Louis, who had been summoned by the Twos when they realised their brother was sick, looked at him. The Two wasn't cognisant of this, however. He could just about make out what people were saying, but most of his attention was taken up by the coughing and the miserable aching and weak feeling that ran through him. "He's Cylon," Louis said, very quietly.

"Of course he is," N'Ara said, "Which is why we need to move fast. We need an isolated hut to move him to-"

"Mine," Louis interrupted. "You can use mine."

"Right," N'Ara directed two men she had accosted to work as orderlies to transfer the Two to a stretcher, and she wrapped him up tightly with thick furs they'd traded for just before the snow had started falling and the valley had been cut off from the outside world. "We've found some native herbs that might help but we're still not-"

The orderlies took him out of the door then, and the Two squinted against the too-bright light of the winter's sun. He could just about make out Fran, in tears, standing a distance away with his brothers. "You'll be alright," she called out, but he had a feeling it was more for her benefit rather than his.

~*~

The days that followed were confusing, painful, and unlike anything he'd experienced before in his life. He'd been forbidden any Cylon visitors, the fear being that any infection would spread like wildfire. They were lucky, N'Ara told him later, that his brothers had realised something was up quickly enough that they didn't get infected themselves before they had notified her. He was seen by N'Ara or one of her trainees often, but what surprised him was that Louis stayed with him.

He was feverish, his head ached fiercely, and he couldn't stop coughing. Pained, nearly delirious, he was hardly conscious of the fact that Louis was holding his hand (and he was certainly not aware of the argument that had occurred between Louis and N'Ara about his continued presence by the Two's bedside). "Is this punishment?" he asked, in one of his better moments. "Punishment from God? I thought he had already punished me?"

A piece of ragged cloth, soaked in cool water made from melted snow, was pressed against his brow. He was pathetically grateful for it. "You've nothing to be punished for."

"God took the stars away from me," he said, and felt tears leaking down his face. "Took them away and banished me to the ground. I can't touch the stars. Isn't that cruel enough?"

The cloth gently wiped away his tears. "You're not being punished," the calm and soothing voice repeated.

"It's because I didn't do anything to stop him," the Two continued, aware in some part of his brain that he was babbling and yet powerless to stop it, "But I didn't know. I couldn't stop him, because I didn't know. God can't punish me for not knowing!"

The cloth paused momentarily. "Stop who?" was asked in curiosity.

The Two was in no condition to reply. He felt into a pained and disturbed sleep.

It was two days before his fever broke, and by then four others had died from the outbreak.

~*~

Fran eventually was allowed to see him, when it was finally decided that the danger was past, and the Two was starting to feel strong enough for visitors. He had been securely wrapped up in so many furs that he vaguely felt like he was being smothered, and the stove in the hut was kept hot to warm the air. It made it just bearable to breath, though N'Ara warned him that he would have permanent scars on his lungs from the ordeal. She kindly instructed him to not attempt to run a marathon any time soon, and it made him laugh, which cut off quickly when it had turned into a cough.

"No other Cylons got sick," she told him, "But two of the younger children died, and two adults. A few others got sick and got better, like you. N'Ara says it could have been much worse. I'm just glad you're ok."

"Told you I wasn't going to die anytime soon," he told her, smiling wanly.

She had a look of excitement on her face. "I have to tell you, though. I want you to be the first to know. I was going to say before, but then you got sick and-" She halted herself, and grinned widely. "I'm pregnant."

The Two felt dizzy in a way he knew wasn't related to the illness. "Congratulations," he said, around a sudden absence of air.

"It's early days yet, I know," Her expression softened to something almost girlish, and she laid a hand on her abdomen. "I suppose it's why I didn't want to announce it to everyone, but I had to tell you."

"Thanks," he said, distantly.

Fran didn't notice his distraction. "Of course, Joshua wants me to marry him as soon as possible now. Doesn't hold with 'having a child out of wedlock' he says. Isn't that so wonderfully quaint? I-"

"Wait." The Two stared at her. "Joshua? Not Louis?"

Fran gave him a confused looked. "Of course Joshua. Why in the world would you think Louis was involved?"

"I..." The Two suddenly felt very foolish indeed. He looked at the furs, at the individual hairs sprouting from it. Another product of animals, and yet the idea of wearing them didn't sicken him the way eating them did. He had to be grateful for that, or he would have been very cold. It gave him something to think about other than the conversation he was having now. "The two of you, I saw-"

Nothing, he'd seen nothing, he realised.

"Beloved brother," she said, taking his hand in her own. "You really thought that? Is... is that why you were avoiding me?"

"No!" It had been, but he wasn't about to admit that now.

There were tears glimmering in her eyes, and he hated himself for putting them there. "Oh, it all makes so much sense now. Then you don't know. You can't possibly know."

He frowned. "Know what?"

The rough door swung open to admit Louis, who was wearing one of the thick thermal-retaining coats they'd brought with them from Galactica. It had started snowing again, the Two saw. A blast of cold air followed him in, causing Fran to make a protesting squawk and he shut the door quickly.

"Sorry," he said, apologetically, "Had to get some fresh water. I don't know about you, but that bark-tea is awfully hard to drink raw. So, how about it? Think you're up to some tea?"

He smiled, and it suddenly prompted that feeling in the Two's stomach that he'd been having for quiet some time, but without the painful twist that normally accompanied it. Fran's fingers had tightened around his own, and she was staring at him significantly.

"Sure," he said, "I think I'd like that a lot."

~*~

"I loved a man," Louis admitted one night, "Who was a traitor."

The Two had never gone back to the hut with Jun and the other Twos. He had found that Louis was right, and it was a good deal quieter and more peaceful on his own, and Louis was very considerate as far as people to cohabit with went. On the other hand, the Two was still mostly confined to the bed. His recovery was taking a long time, and without better medical equipment to monitor him, N'Ara was erring on the side of caution.

He would have been happy with silence, but instead he found himself talking to Louis. At first it had been silly inconsequential things, nothing more important than they would have discussed over lunch. But then time passed, and Louis told him about watching his Captain gun down her first officer, and the Two told him what it was like to die in the fiery explosion of a Basestar only to wake up, disorientated, light years away and suddenly alive again.

They lay together on the bed, the most comfortable place in the small house. The Two had insisted that Louis stop sleeping on the bedroll on the floor the moment he realised how uncomfortable and cold it was. It was a measure of how unpleasant such a sleeping position was that Louis didn't argue at all. The little stove was low, but it still put out enough heat to keep the room warm. They were covered in the furs to make up for what the stove couldn't manage.

"Still love him, I suppose," he continued, staring up towards the ceiling. The Two watched his profile and said nothing. "Even though he was responsible for... for so many deaths." His voice cracked a little as he spoke. "I knew he was broken, inside. But I thought... I thought we'd get through it eventually."

The Two didn't have to cast around for a possible name for long. "Felix Gaeta," he said, quietly.

After a moment, Louis nodded. "Yes," he whispered. "Afterwards, everyone was suspicious of me for a while. I suppose I proved myself by not siding with Felix. The Admiral trusted me enough, it seems, to give me his stars when he was leaving. That's something."

The Two frowned thoughtfully. "Would you have sided with him, if he'd asked?"

"He didn't ask," Louis said, firmly, "And I'll never have to make that choice."

~*~

When he was finally strong enough to walk outside without help, he was greeted enthusiastically by his brother and sister Cylons. What surprised him most was the welcome from the Humans as well. He supposed he should stop thinking of the two groups as separate, when each seemed to think of themselves as part of the same family. It seemed that, these days, he was the only one having trouble with the concept. Spring was starting to arrive, and the formerly hard ground was turning into mud on the warmer mornings. The snow had mostly melted, except for a few white patches that the children were defiantly playing in.

Fran's attention was being monopolised by the women of the village, who were seizing upon the prospect of a wedding with a frankly terrifying eagerness. The whole concept was alien to the Cylons, but the Sixes and Eights were clearly throwing themselves into the spirit of things. The Two privately thought that it was a reaction to the lives claimed by the fortunately minor Pneumonia outbreak. They wanted a chance to celebrate new life where they could. Fran was starting to show, and so she'd publicly announced her pregnancy, to the great excitement of the entire community. Hers would be the first baby born to their village on this new Earth. A hybrid baby too, which had been proclaimed as auspicious by both a Two and an Oracle who spent more of her time throwing clay pots these days than casting bones.

Fran managed to excuse herself from her crowd of women, who were discussing flowers and gowns, and other things that the Two realised he had no desire to think about lest his brain melt. She came over to him and embraced him. He could easily feel the unfamiliar bump. "You look better," she told him, "Has Louis been making sure you eat?"

"Yes," he said, "He's worse than you."

"Impossible," Fran said, pretending affront. Then she looked at him closer, and smiled. "You've stopped projecting."

"Have I?" He had honestly not thought about it. He had been ill, and it had been too mentally exhausting to make the effort to project somewhere other than where he was. He'd not realise that he hadn't taken up the habit again. Strange, to think that he didn't notice the way his own mind work. It was almost... almost Human.

"You should see God's land as it truly is," Fran said, sagely, "Embrace it."

"If you say so," he told her.

"The flowers have started to come up," Fran told him, taking his hand and walking him through the village. "Little green shoots starting to peek through the ground. It's wonderful." She squeezed his hand as they wandered to the outskirts of the village, and look outwards. To the left was the sea, ahead the cliff, and to the right, the woodlands that covered a lot of the valley.

"It is beautiful here," she said, "God isn't punishing you."

He looked sharply at her, opening his mouth to object, to deny, to ask how she knew...

She gave him a tight, sad smile. "Louis told me. When you were ill, you said you thought God was punishing you. He wanted to know why you thought that."

He wanted to pull his hand out of her grip, but she held on with unsurprising strength. Cylons were built strong. "Did you tell him?" he asked.

Fran looked at him thoughtfully for a long moment. "No. Even if I did know the story, it's not mine to tell." She hesitated, and her hold on his hand loosened. "None of us would judge you," she said, "Not any of us. Cylon or Human."

"Of course," he said. They didn't need to judge him. He was happy doing that to himself.

~*~

Fran's wedding was held well into the spring, when the flowers had bloomed and the trees were starting to turn green. She wasn't dressed in anything special. They didn't have much in the way of beautiful cloth for wedding gowns, but she and her husband-to-be were festooned with garlands of blossoms that had been worked on by all the children in the village. They were married on the cliffside, and as Human customs seemed inappropriate for a mixed marriage, and Cylons had no wedding customs of their own, the two of them had managed to sort out their vows between them, presided over by no one, instead stating them before the assembled village.

And then, of course, they had the party.

They didn't have much in the way of musical instruments, but some of the cold winter months had been whiled away trying to make up for what they lacked. Leather had been stretched to create rather serviceable drums, and the chips of metal that had once been utensils or pots that had been broken or too worn to function had been reused to form little metallic chimes that tinkled in a pleasing fashion when shaken. There were even one or two woodwind instruments, though there was little in the way of skill on display.

The inexpert playing was made up for in sheer enthusiasm, and after enough alcohol things such as key or melody seemed unimportant. There was clapping, laughter and dancing, and the Two was treated to the sight of Fran being twirled by her new husband, flowers flying everywhere. The people around them tried to catch the stray blooms, laughing as their coordination failed them and a few went tumbling to the ground.

The Two looked across the fire, where Louis was grinning and clapping with the rest of them. He was illuminated by the fire's glow, rendering him in lambent shades of yellow and red. He made a decision.

~*~

Louis had made a startled sound when the Two had grabbed his hand and an unopened bottle of drink in that order, firmly pulling him away from the party. But he seemed to sense that something was going on, as he said nothing and allowed himself to be led up to the cliff-side, where the Two sat down, his legs dangling over the edge, and opened the bottle. After a moment's hesitation, Louis sat down next to him. The Two took a large swallow to build up some sort of courage, then handed the bottle to Louis, and began, without preamble.

"My line, my model, the Twos, we had this... well... I suppose you could call it 'fixation', though the others liked to call it an obsession, on a woman. Kara Thrace. Starbuck. Some held that obsession closer than others, but we all knew that she was part of God's plan, even if the others couldn't see it. We knew. When Resurrection was destroyed, and suddenly we were all in the bodies that we would always be in, we started to... individualise."

The Two waved his hands vaguely as he struggled through a faintly drunken haze to find the right words. He stared out at the sea. It was a clear night, and the half moon hanging over the horizon reflected on the water. Louis, at least, didn't speak. The Two wasn't sure how he'd deal with that. Louis took a drink and handed the bottle back. They went that way while the Two continued speaking, passing the drink back and forth between them.

"One of the Twos, he liked to be called Leoben because that's what she called him, he was definitely obsessed. And she seemed to accept him by her side when we were looking for Earth. I knew she was important, but I had no desire to seek her out. I was... content in the knowledge that she was being guided. Then we got to Earth and... and..."

His voice started to fail him. Louis stayed silent, though, and waited for the Two to collect himself.

"Something changed. He was my brother, like all the others, but when we became mortal, relationships changed. We talked a lot. I thought he was a bit headstrong but his heart was in the right place. We all did. It's why we let him act for our line. He came back from Earth, and everything was different about him. He was pale, shaking. I went to see him, because the others knew we were closest and they were worried. He was laughing, but it wasn't real laughter. It was this weird sort of giggle that didn't sound right.

"He said to me, 'The Hybrid named her. The Harbinger of Death. Death!'. And then he laughed, and it was like I could feel my heart breaking. I took his hand and asked him what was wrong. 'Everything,' he said. 'We're all doomed. It's my fault. I brought her to this place. How does wiping us all out work for God's plan? Maybe it isn't. Maybe it's not God's plan, and I was working against it. Dear God forgive me.' He kept repeating that over and over.

"I asked him what I could do to help, and he just got really still. 'Nothing,' he said, 'You can't do anything. I'm so sorry to burden you with this, brother, I'm so sorry.' And then..." the Two's breath caught in his throat, but he forced the words out. "I don't even know where he got the gun from. I think he lifted it from one of the colonial officers. One minute I'm sitting looking into his eyes, and the next he... he put a gun to his head and bang and I was still holding his hand and there was blood everywhere..."

He looked down at his hands, expecting to see blood as fresh and red as if it had just happened. His hands were clean, of course, but they were shaking. Then Louis's hands wrapped around his own, stilling them, and suddenly the Two was crying as he had never done on the Basestar. He had just been sitting there when the others had run in, alerting by the gunfire. He'd gone around in a daze for a week, but he'd never cried. The others had all tried to get him to talk, but he never said why their brother had killed himself, unable to burden them, terrified that they would do the same as their suicidal sibling. Louis wrapped him up in his arms, murmuring reassuring nonsense into his ear, and the Two couldn't seem to manage to stop himself from overflowing with emotion, and so he stopped trying.

By the time he finished crying, exhausted but feeling lighter than he had in months, he tried to pretend that it wasn't a surprise when Louis kissed him, but really, it was.

~*~

"You're an idiot," Fran informed him much later, when he told her of that night.

"I know," he said, and smiled.

~*~

"I think I'd like to have a name now," the Two said, pulling up the bed-furs to cover them a little better. The stove had long since gone out and the chill of the early morning was creeping in.

Louis was half asleep, languid and relaxed, but at the Two's words, he made the effort to pay attention. "Really?" he sounded surprised. "I thought you didn't want one."

"I didn't," the Two allowed, "But now I do."

Louis opened his mouth, as if to argue, but then he smiled and shook his head. "What name do you want to use?"

The Two thought of the other Two, the Leoben, who had unthinkingly trusted him with a terrible secret that wasn't so terrible really, and had killed himself because his faith was so shaken. He thought of the stars, and how he would never see them up close again. He'd do better than his brother, he decided.

"Ben," he said, "I like the name Ben."

~*~~*~