The Opera House
The lights were dim, tinged with a deep reddish-purple hue. Faint echoes of an ancient orchestra hummed off key, ever elusive in the background. Laura couldn't tell if the Opera House was tilting heavily to the left or if it was her.
A muted giggle; high pitched laughter. Laura struggled in the direction she thought it was coming from. But only seconds later the laughter echoed out from the staircase behind her. She whipped around, feeling like she was moving underwater. She caught a glimpse of dark curls and a white sweater before the two-foot-high shadow disappeared around the corner.
"H-Hera!" It was so hard to focus, but Laura knew it was important that she reach the child before-her. There she was, the Cylon viper pilot who liked to play house with the humans. They shared a look across the wide expanse between balconies; Roslin felt frozen for a moment, and saw her own panic reflected in the Cylon woman's dark eyes. Then they moved as one, running, racing towards the child. Sharon's baby. The child that Roslin wanted to save the human race.
So many frakking stairs. No real Opera House could have this many stairs, Laura thought sourly, and vaguely she knew that this was a dream. The same dream she kept having over and over. She wished she could remember how it ended.
She reached the lobby, the main floor, at exactly the same time as Sharon, and knew this was how it was supposed to happen. Even as they both fought toward the wide open double doors, watching Hera disappear into the blinding light spilling forth, Laura's dread was quietly resigned. The light softened somewhat, and Laura stood side by side with Sharon as the silhouettes of three people slowly became recognizable. And even her surprise-and loathing-was subdued as Gaius Baltar watched Caprica Six kneel down and welcome Hera with open arms.
This was how it always happened. Every night. Now she would wake up, repulsed, panicked, disappointed, sweating in her narrow bed-read, couch-on Colonial One. She could only hope she hadn't screamed this time, or Tory or someone equally distasteful would run in and disturb her.
Sometimes she really missed Billy.
But instead of fading out of focus as her conscious mind took over, suddenly the dream surged back into her reality, sharpening where the edges had been subtly merging into grey windowed walls looking out on the hollowness of space. Everything seemed suddenly several degrees clearer than before; the colors, the music, the play of light. The fact that there was only one person before her, and no one left beside her.
Caprica Six was still kneeling on the lavish carpet, but her arms were empty. Laura's brain told her to leave immediately and find Hera, but for some reason…her body was moving towards the woman, drawn by a mysterious impulse of empathy. Dream-Laura knew exactly what she was doing; moved with purpose, with cool confidence and intent, driven by a twisting compassion. The vague semi-consciousness of President Roslin on the outskirts of actuality wondered what the hell was going on.
Laura knelt beside Caprica, and realized suddenly that the Cylon was weeping. Laura's hand gently lifted Caprica's face with her fingertips, and Caprica didn't resist, just stared up at Laura, broken, vulnerable, tears streaming openly down her beautiful face, until even the consciousness of Roslin twinged in sympathy.
"Why are you crying?" Dream-Laura asked, whispering, gentle.
"I lost her…" Sobbed Caprica. Wretchedly. Broken. "I was supposed to protect her…and…"
And then Laura leaned down, her empathetic pain overwhelming her until she knelt before Caprica, her delicate hand still gripping the other woman's chin, drawn in by those wide, pain-filled blue eyes…
…and with a gasping scream, Roslin sits bolt upright in bed, mind filled with sensations of Caprica's warm embrace, of soft feminine lips against her own. She resists the urge to scream again, and keep screaming.
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