dangermousie | BSG Fanfic: The Countdown Clock, 1/1

Title: The Countdown Clock
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica
Summary: What happens during those 33 minute intervals among the crew, as the Cylons keep coming and there is no sleep. Set during “33”
Rating: PG-13, 1179 words
Characters: Lee, Kara, Tigh, Adama, Sharon, Tyrol, Cally, Roslin, Baltar, Billy, Dee, Gaeta
AN: I've been experimenting with the format, so let me know if it works (or if it sucks)

2 minutes

The vipers hit down with a clang that no one can hear, and screech to a hasty, ungraceful halt. The shock reverberates in his bones, even through protective gear and the straps anchoring him to his seat. He’s lost track of hours and targets and of everything except a dull desire to rest, and an equally blunted desire to push on. His tiredness is making images fragment into details, and colors stand out in greater relief at the same time the sound is strangely muffled. They are his command now, and he doesn’t want it, and he can’t not have it. They don’t know him and they need him and Lee is the last resort and he has never hated being the responsible one more.

6 minutes

The water tastes metallic in her mouth, and she swallows hastily, big painful gulps, so the tang won’t bother her as much. Her teeth feel fuzzy and her eyelashes weigh too much, pulling the eyelids down, closer towards forbidden sleep. As she rubs the greasy sleeve against her face and picks up the wrench, Cally realizes that she will never get to taste spring water again.

8 minutes

There is no world left at all, and there is no government, except her, really. Humanity is mere scraps and these scraps might be blown away at any moment and yet, what Laura Roslin realizes most acutely at the moment is that she only has one suit to last her for the rest of her life, which at this time can be anything from minutes (Cylons) or months (cancer). One doesn’t pack a wardrobe for a brief ceremonial visit of little importance but still, Laura’s mind is drifting to her comfortable bathrobe that hangs (hung) on the door of her closet, to a coat with light green trim she found stylish, to a pair of open toed sandals she bought last week. There is a hand on her shoulder and she realizes she, unforgivably, slept. She corrects her glasses with a well-worn gesture and peers at the papers in front of her. At least she won’t have to worry about color-matching ever again.

11 minutes

She was flying and she was born for it and she feels more vivid than she has in a long long time. She knows she is tired: it manifests in being more on edge than usual, even. Abrasive has been passed a long time ago and the setting is “Asshole” now. But what bothers her is not exhaustion seeping through her nerve endings, not the angry outburst at a mechanic who did her no harm, not even the fact that she barely brushed her teeth in 5 days and that her suit reeks of sweat and adrenaline and motor oil. What bothers her is that she is happy: focused, flying, free. Showing her skill, pitting it against the odds, swooping in the black immensity of the sky with Lee at her side. The world has ended, and Kara Thrace finally feels alive.

17 minutes

Dee likes the organized patterns and the steady lights of the CIC. She likes her post and her job and the fact that she can barely think straight and the fact that she longs for her cot more than anything she’s ever longed for in her life. Numbers, orders, figures, patterns. She relays information in a voice as clear as she can make it, what with the lack of sleep and overabundance of talking. When she busies herself, she doesn’t have to think of her family, family that was and is not any more, or the fact that “alone in the world” now has a starkly literal meaning.

18 minutes

Baltar falls into a sleep some would call haunted. He’d call it a pleasant fantasy (if he had to characterize it, which he doesn’t), seeing that the dream is him and a beautiful icy blonde and silk sheets. The seats on Colonial One are comfortable, but there is nowhere for him to stretch his legs, and the minute irritation of this filters through his dream. So does the knowledge that any minute the signal will go off and “they” will reappear again and “we” might not make it this time. But this is only local color, background, to the smooth cool flesh on the smooth cool sheets. If he dies, he shall at least die happy.

21 minutes

The uniform should always be precise, he thinks, as he washes his hands and dries them and runs a comb through his hair. The uniform should always be precise, the unifo…Gaeta catches himself repeating the phrase in his head, trying to sink its meaning in, because nothing seems to be sticking and the words disintegrate into letters and the letters scatter around the cotton-lined interior of his brain. And he realizes he has drifted off into a bizarre fancy and any more of this and he will shut down and crumple on the bathroom floor. So he breathes in deeply, through the mouth, trying to inhale more oxygen as if it would help, and he splashes some water on his face. But he is careful not to get any water anywhere below the neck. After all, the uniform should always be precise.

24 minutes

Sharon looks at Crashdown, at his friendly grin, at his cropped hair, at his lanky frame, and all she sees is Helo, the one she left on Caprica to die. She leans in an abandoned corridor, fighting the urge to slide down and hide her face in her hair and pretend all of this doesn’t exist. A shadow makes the dark hallway darker and she sees Galen, face unshaven, eyes bloodshot. “It’s your sleep break” she half-asks, half-accuses as she leans into him. “I know” is whispered back and his arms go around her and he holds her and she holds him and she isn’t sure who is holding whom up (or maybe they are both falling down together) and it doesn’t matter.

29 minutes

When Billy thought this internship was a good position, he never realized he is Intern For Life. When he thought of what it would be like to work for the Secretary of Education as he filled out his application, and signed it carefully before submitting (his mother always said they might look at the nice handwriting more favorably, pay it more attention), he never thought he’d be assisting the President after a Nuclear Holocaust wiped his past and his present and his future away. When he thought…he doesn’t want to think of it any more.

30 minutes

Adama. How is the Old Man holding up? Well, that’s a ridiculous question. His eyes are a red mess, and his grey-white stubble makes his face bristle and the creases seem to be falling in deeper and deeper on his face, and soon they will reach the bone. But Tigh knows the Old Man is holding up just fine. This is nothing the Old Man can’t deal with, after all.

33 minutes

Signals. Cylons attack. The cycle starts again.