Whispers
  By Seanchaidh
 
"The shadows fell across the room as I lay down to rest,
The storm was raging deep inside my heart.
I fell into a restless sleep of crazy, changing dreams;
I woke to find you standing by my bed."
~"Clohinne Winds" by Niamh Parsons and the Loose Connections
 
 
Each day, life gets a little easier.
     I visited one of the merchant ships with Athena today, searching
for items we'd need for this and that.  Shopping and even true commerce
is a luxury just beginning to be revived in the fleet, a return to life
before the Cylons destroyed our worlds and all we'd held as normal. 
I'd never been a fan of shopping, relegating the activity to women with
interests far less important than the matters I was considering as a
younger woman.  My career and all it meant held more importance.
     And so I was truly surprised when I found myself enjoying the
experience.  It brought memories of outings with my mother as a girl
when we'd comb through her favorite shops near our home on Caprica.  I
was a temperamental child, tiring quickly no matter what time of day or
season. Mother would humor me with gentle words, reminding me that as
much I resembled her, I was truly my father's daughter.
     Time changes a great many things, something I'm really coming to
understand more as the yahrens go by, as ironic as that may seem.  I've
mellowed through time, becoming less like the great Commander Cain and
more what I remember my mother as being.  Or at least more of an even
mix of the two, something which amuses my father's old friend, Adama,
to no end.
     There's one thing time won't provide me with; that much was
revealed to me as I waited for Athena to finish haggling prices with
one of the merchants.  Walking past us with more of a shuffle than an
actual stride, an old couple made their way through the market as
though there was nothing strange about this gathering of people in an
environment of cold metal.  He had his arm firmly around her waist even
though he was more infirm than she.  She was keeping her pace even and
steady so he could keep up, an action more unconscious habit than
anything deliberate.  They had countless yahrens of happiness together,
facing untold more as they shared their love.
     When I reached that age, all I would have is a ghost of a
treasured love long past.
     There had been many long and lonely nights during the last eight
sectars.  Nights when I would wake up, reaching for a warm body no
longer present, cool sheets against my palms.  When I expected dark
hair, a strong and slim body, I only encountered a cherished memory,
already faded as time slipped by.
     Eight sectars makes for more than two hundred days, and more
centars than I'd care to count.  I could calculate them all, but it
would still feel like I lost Apollo yesterday.
     If I closed my eyes, the darkness of my chambers weighing in on
me, I could still sense him, like a presence on the edge of awareness.
There were times when I would turn to tell him something, only to
remember when empty air and silence greeted my words.  And yet, in a
way, I sensed him as a shadow of times past, a part of him imprinted
forever in my time and space.  Moments when I would see his smile,
speaking of so many things, flashing before me as fast as a blink. 
Each brief moment caught in time would speak of something in our
relationship, of love and wonder, disbelief and awe.  A love without
attachment, a promise intended to be kept as long as eternity lasts.
     What would his reaction be if he learned about what's about to
happen?  None of us could have expected the strange twists fate
intended for our lives.  The magic brought about by our last night
together, an evening of romance originally intended as a prelude to our
engagement, didn't die with the news that Apollo was missing in action. 
Instead, it formed something else, another form of promise, nothing he
could have expected to see.
     We tried to find Apollo in the time allotted to us by the
Commander.  With Cylons suspected as the cause and therefore likely on
our tail, it wasn't long.  Gone were the days of being able to search
thoroughly for a pilot who was MIA.  I prayed the entire time, never
sure who exactly might be listening; asking for a sign, a hint of
something.  Anything!  I wanted my love back, uninjured and safe.  Or
even injured if that meant I'd have him.  My prayers went unheeded, and
I returned to the _Galactica_ with Starbuck and Boomer, my life in
pieces.
     There was no sense of closure, no absolute certainty that Apollo
was actually dead.  We all felt something, a kind of foreboding that
something had happened, and not for the best.  We all had a lingering
hope, one that never really amounted to much and faded as days went by
with no sign.  We had to move on, filling in spaces and continuing as
best we could.
     It took a very long time, a process still ongoing.  The fact that
I can talk about him now in the past tense still surprises me, a sign
that things are indeed moving on.  They have to.  The old theory that
those who don't adapt die holds a great deal of meaning for us now that
the Colonies are gone.
     I chose to adapt, and therein, Apollo's promise came back.
     Grief has strange ways of appearing to those who mourn; as varied
as the people affected.  Adama buried himself in his command, and Boxey
similarly did with his studies.  Starbuck raged and I withdrew.  None
of us knew how to really cope with this new change, yet another loss in
an existence all too aware of what we were missing now that Apollo was
gone.
     It wasn't long after his death when I realized something was
happening to me.  Symptoms appeared, happening too coincidentally to be
something irrelevant.  My menstrual cycle was messed up, coming to a
halt; this can often be the result of too much stress over a short
period of time. Bouts of nausea came soon after, something often
connected to high states of emotion.  If they'd been separate, I'd
never have suspected anything but grief.  But together?
     Quickly enough, my pregnancy was confirmed, at a sectar and a half
along.  The news caught me by surprise, even though I'm sure under
different circumstances I'd have caught on.  And even despite my grief,
I know I knew on some basic level.  Apollo's child was in my womb, and
I didn't know what I was going to do.  A happiness to be shared between
a loving couple, tainted with pain with the loss of one member.
     But despite Apollo's glaring absence, I knew he was there.  I felt
it, in one way or another.  A patient presence, a joy that came from
more than just me when our child moved for the first time, his kick
announcing life to his mother, too used to death.
     I know Apollo is there, in some form or another.  One sleepless
night, lying on my side since my stomach was now far too large to make
my back a comfortable position, I wished for my love.  A common enough
desire; I know without a doubt that my father wished for my mother in
the yahrens after her death, even when he was in the company of another
woman.  I'd heard before of marriage rent in two, of partners left
behind claiming something became of those desires of having their loved
ones again.  I believed them to be wishful thinking at the time, that
they were daydreams becoming too real, to the point of delusion.
     My beliefs changed when I felt a presence behind me.
     Disembodied warmth spooned against my back.  An arm moved above my
waist to bring me closer, another hand drawing my hair to the side to
gain access to my bare neck.  Warm lips pressed against the skin, a
smile brushing gently.
     I wasn't afraid.  The touch was familiar, the only one I craved.
The hand holding the hair moved down my back, a spot of warmth moving
to the curve in the small of my back, exaggerated by the growing weight
of my belly.  The other hand moved only a fraction, enough to rest at
the first swell where the child was.  I would have expected movement,
but the familiar kicking was stilled, almost as though his attention
was focused on something; absorbed to the point of distraction.
     Tension eased from my body, my eyes drifting close in relaxation.
Knots of pain, emotional wounds manifesting in tense muscles, eased in
ways I never imagined possible given recent events.  It was bliss, a
glimpse of a life I may have had if the fates chose another path for my
life.
     A voice whispered gently, a familiar tenor murmuring words of
comfort after too long an absence.  Words offering comfort, support and
love.  They lulled me to sleep.
     Was it a dream?  A fantasy?  I asked the questions to myself
countless times, inconclusive answers coming to me each time.  When I
woke that morning, there was nothing different about my quarters upon
first glance.  All that seemed different was myself, until I looked
closer.  I had the sense that someone had wandered through the rooms,
looking at my possessions as though they were museum pieces.  Pictures
were in different spots; an image of Apollo and me in happier times
with our arms wrapped around Boxey moved to a more prominent location. 
Had I done that, in a thoughtless moment with my mind distracted?  It's
more likely than not the case, but there was something lingering in the
room as Athena met me that morning.  She shivered, drawing her arms
about her as she spoke.  I could catch brief glimpses of emotions in
her eyes, moving quickly to be replaced by another, but whether it was
there to be begin with or something else, I'll never be sure.
     All in all, it might have been nothing.
     But I do feel different.  A general sense of purpose has come to
me, a sense that I can really continue with the events that are
propelling my life forward.  Whatever is coming, I will be able to
handle it.  No more is the life where something chides me that Apollo
was a wonderful man, "but he's dead."  He remains with me, inside my
heart, but I can move on comfortably with my life.
     Perhaps one day, I'll be the old woman glimpsed about that ship,
walking with her husband and supporting each other in our infirmity and
love.  The man won't be Apollo, but I sense he doesn't mind if my
future happens to include another man.
     But what was it I experienced?  Was it real?  I believe it was,
perhaps not from the scanty so-called physical evidence left behind,
but more of a sense of ease.  He was there that night, present in a
limited way only in the sense of solidity.  He gave me a sense of
closure in a way, by knowing that what we had isn't gone.  It's part of
me, to cherish in my memories and in the way I raise our child in the
knowledge of who his father once was.  The future is not mine or
Apollo's to judge, but it's there to be experienced freely without the
past having as much a say with it as it once did.
     I think that's really what Apollo wanted for me, and it makes my
heart feel better for it.
 
 "We stopped on the faerie hill beneath the hawthorn tree.
I thought I heard a lonely banshee wailing.
You held your hand toward me, and I reached to touch your face.
And woke to find that you were just a dream."
~"Clohinne Winds" by Niamh Parsons and the Loose Connections
 
- The End -