DISCLAIMER: Battlestar Galactica is the
property of Glen A. Larson, Sci-Fi Channel, R & D TV, Sky and NBC
Universal.
SPOILERS: set around Season 7 episode `Six Degrees of Separation'.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
God's Will
By Celievamp
Shelley Godfrey…
She has a name.
She has made allegations against Gaius Baltar. Serious allegations. He claims not to know her but no one is convinced. She says he sabotaged the defence computers, allowed the Cylon attack to happen. He says she is a Cylon agent.
I have the feeling that they are both telling the truth.
This disease that has me in its grasp is insidious, unforgiving. The medication is worse than the disease. I want very much for the medication to work. The alternatives… the alternatives cannot be born.
I look at the security footage from Galactica. She was there. People saw her, talked to her. Adama and Tighe amongst them.
People do not just vanish into thin air. She does. She comes, makes her promises, clouds my thoughts confuses my actions and then she disappears. I do not know what to think, what to believe. I truly don't. My previous career as a, let's face it, fairly minor civil servant did not exactly prepare me for this. All the things that had to happen, all the people who had to die just so I could be here and now, in this place, in this time. It is humbling and somehow intensely painful to think of it.
His Divine Hand. This is what she believes. His Divine Will. His Divine Hand. Her hand, her touch, so soft against my skin, so deft in its movements. She made me feel things I have never… thought I would never feel. Not in this life. She believes she has a personal relationship with this God of hers.
Gaius Baltar is proven innocent. The security footage from Caprica was faked. Why and by whom we can only speculate. Yet I know his guilt. I know.
He is a deeply troubled man who knows more about the Cylons than he will admit. He seems… haunted, in a way that is almost familiar to me. Does he see her? His behaviour around Shelley Godfrey was very strange. As if he was surprised that anyone else could see her.
"All of you can see her. You can all see her!... uh… you'll have to forgive me, Miss Godfrey, I'm very pleased if slightly puzzled, to make your acquaintance."
The `evidence' against him was carefully judged, enough to ensure he was placed in custody, not enough to ensure his immediate execution. Work on the Cylon detector was suspended on Adama's orders. Baltar appealed to me in person.
"Madam President, I need to get off Galactica, I need to get away from this Shelley Godfrey woman in particular, she's got it in for me… Madam President, I have reason to believe… that she may be a Cylon…"
Something in me broke at that. I stopped. Everything stopped. I collapsed. Billy got Doc Cottle, he diagnosed an overdose of medication. Foolish of me I know. Three times the dose does not mean it will work three times as fast. Cottle was quite scathing with me: apparently I was lucky I hadn't lapsed into a coma. News of my collapse had spread like wildfire through the fleet, not helped by Billy broadcasting his plea for a doctor to attend me over an open channel. Cottle voiced his objections but gave me something to get me back on my feet again by the end of the day. Then I would have to face the press of course. The story put out so far was that I had stomach flu. It would work for now, but not in the long term. As my condition progressed, I would only get sicker and sicker. I could not hide the truth forever.
Adama was also having doubts about Shelley Godfrey and the timing of her `evidence'. Of course, Amarak and anyone who might have corroborated her story had died on the `Olympic Carrier'. He had spoken to Godfrey himself and something about her unnerved him enough for him to confine her to the Galactica and put her under discreet surveillance.
Baltar himself behaved as foolishly as one might expect of him. He tried to suborn Lieutenant Gaeta into altering the evidence against him, making sure that the blurred reflection of the saboteur's face did not resolve into that of Gaius Baltar. Gaeta of course being the good little soldier he was refused to have anything to do with it.
Baltar then confronted Godfrey herself according to the surveillance reports. He accused her of being a Cylon and went to Adama himself with his claims. He wanted to recommence work on his Cylon detector, use it to test the truth of his claims about Shelley Godfrey.
"… I am convinced, in fact, that she is a Cylon agent. In my opinion, she should be locked up before she can do any more damage. Work on the Cylon detector is nearly complete. With a few tweaks here and there I'll have a test regime up and running. All I need is a tissue sample from this woman for analysis."
Adama refused. "Let me be frank with you, doctor. If your picture's on that photograph, every piece of equipment in your laboratory will be dismantled and quarantined and every person that you've met will be questioned and investigated."
He knew Godfrey, I knew it. He knew her in the same way I knew her. But I would never get him to admit it. And I could never tell him about her either.
"The President believes I'm innocent."
"The president hopes you're innocent. And so do I. Because if you're not, then you've made fools of both of us. And I don't like to be made a fool of. " Adama did not bother to hide his contempt for the scientist.
"And I don't like to be accused of participating in the genocide of the human race, based solely on the word of a woman whom I have already indicated to you may well be a Cylon agent."
I noticed how distracted he seemed, even when he was essentially arguing for his life. His gaze skittered around the room as if he was looking for something or someone, expecting them to appear. Expecting you to appear.
"I did not conspire with the Cylons. I am an innocent man, who is being convicted in the court of public opinion without trial," Baltar defended himself.
The incident in the lab was fortuitous. Baltar had a cast iron alibi – he was being interrogated by Adama himself at the time and it did increasingly appear if Baltar was being set up. Though whether it was by the mysterious Miss Godfrey still had to be proven one way or another.
He tried so hard to persuade me that he was innocent, that he was being framed. "I want to believe you," I told him. "I want to believe that I haven't made such a profound error in judgement in trusting you, in asking your advice. But here's where we are, doctor. If anyone can be a Cylon, and it's hard to tell us apart then we only have one thing left to trust. Our instincts, our feelings. And the moment they told me it was your face in the photo I knew I believed it. I believe you were involved in the attack… somehow. I feel it."
"You'll forgive me, madam president, if I don't wish to be executed based solely on your gut feeling," he spat.
"May the gods have mercy on your soul," I said solemnly.
Gaeta came through for Baltar - he proved that the incriminating security pictures were faked. He always believed that Baltar was innocent. And Shelley Godfrey just disappeared, not just from the Battlestar, but from the fleet. Adama could not believe it.
"She was here, she was right here. This woman existed, she didn't just vanish. Have them check again."
I had to exonerate Baltar publicly. No matter what my true feelings – my true knowledge – were. He had been `a victim of treachery and deceit' in what was obviously a Cylon plot. The words were so bitter in my mouth. I cut it as short as I could before retiring to my rooms and telling Billy that I did not want to be disturbed.
What had happened put Baltar in a strong position. He had to be on to something with his Cylon detector otherwise why would they have taken such risks to shut him down. Unless… it was all a set up from the start. They have made him a hero. It will be hard for anyone to ever accuse him of treason again. And Shelley Godfrey – did she ever exist? Did they kill her, assume her identity? Did the real Shelley Godfrey once walk the streets of Caprica? Did she have a family, friends? Or was she only ever a chimera, a figment of the Cylon imagination.
"You know the truth of that already, Laura." Soft yet strong fingers feathered through her hair then pressed to her brow, her cheek. "You're running a fever. You need to take better care of yourself."
"I'm dying. The medicine is getting less and less effective. You know this."
"I know it but I do not accept it. You don't have to accept it either, Laura. She didn't."
"She… you're talking about Shelley Godfrey. So she was real."
"Once upon a time," Six smiled. "Like you, we gave her a choice no one else could make."
And then her nostrils were filled with the scent of fresh grass, chilled with early morning dew. They were naked under the blazing stars. She stared up at constellations not seen for millennia. She named them one by one, soft, reverent, the old names… Sagittarius, Leo, Gemini. "This isn't possible," she whispered.
"If it is His Will then nothing is impossible," Six said. "You have come home, Laura."
It was too much to bear. She curled up, pressing her forehead to her knees. "Dreaming… I'm dreaming. You said I had a fever."
Six curled up around her. She shivered as she felt cool soft lips touch the top of her spine. "If that is easier for you to believe," she whispered. "But I tell you, Laura Roslin, one day we will lie here together and you will come to truly understand the glory of his creation and your place in it. God loves you, Laura. God loves you so much that he does not want to lose you. Remember the prophecies, look to who will lead. Talk to the priestess if you want proof. She will guide you truly."
"How many…" Laura whispered. The chill air made her feel weak and shivery yet at the same time more alive than she had felt for months. She felt Six's hand smooth over her shoulder and arm before settling across her abdomen again. "How many of my people do you whisper to in their dreams?"
"To any who will hear us," Six said. "More than you know, fewer than we would like. But more open their minds and hearts to us every day. They see the futility of existence under the old ways. They know that all things pass in the end and the universe is enriched by their passing. So it will be with humanity. God's Will be done. We admire your struggle, Laura. We will cherish your passing. You will not be forgotten."
Laura closed her eyes, turning her head away so that Six would not see her tears. The Cylon woman made love to her, almost reverentially, her touches, kisses gentle yet firm. Sooner than she would have thought possible Laura felt her orgasm burst through her, her hands clenching into fists burying her fingers in the moist fertile soil, her cry of release merging with the sound of her alarm call. She opened her eyes, shuddering. She was back in her quarters. A few seconds later there was a knock on her door, Billy's respectful tones reminding her that she had an early briefing.
"Thank you, Billy," she called back. Gingerly, she sat up, suppressing a groan at the ache in her back and side. She really should not fall asleep on her couch. She reached up to push her hair out of her eyes and paused. Her nails were rimed with dark brown soil, more lightly coated the palm of her hand. And stuck to her skin were blades of fresh green grass.
"God's Will, Laura. God's Will."
The End