Title: Play It Again, Sam
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica
Rating: PG
Length: ~1400
Characters: Ellen, Sam, Saul, Six, Daniel, Eight, (Ellen/Saul)
Episode Setting: Pre-series
Summary: The Final Five don't have the most consistent of parenting philosophies.
Author's Notes: This may be slightly cracky, but I'm not sure there's a way to address this part of BSG canon that isn't. I'm fascinated with this time period, regardless.
Ellen watched Saul from the doorway, a twinkle in her eye as she saw him set down his worn book to reach for the bottle on the table. He’d probably read that book seven times since Earth had been destroyed, and each time it seemed to require more and more drink to stand it. She had to admit the quality wasn’t that great, the book or the drink. But it gave her amusement to watch him at it—her Saul, grumbling as he tried to survive this universe that only held five of their kind.
“Well, are you going to come in?” he demanded under his breath without looking up, and poured the glass.
“Saul,” she reprimanded slightly, walking in. “Do you say that every time you think someone’s at the door?”
“I knew it was you,” he mumbled.
Ellen sniffed the air. “New spirits?”
“Tyrol came in on the project,” Saul answered, toasting to her as he downed the first sip. His face wrinkled in grimace. “At least he knows more about it than Anders.”
“Well of course,” Ellen answered, taking his glass and sipping a little for herself. It bit strongly, and burned down the back of her throat. “Ooh—ah—yes, our Sam is hardly an expert on such matters. We must educate him better, him and Tory.” She sat next to him on the love-seat, draping her arm around his shoulder and playing with the short hairs around his ear.
“I don’t mind keeping it for just ourselves,” Saul answered, a deep rumble in his voice. He turned towards her, face close.
Ellen grinned. Then her eyes glanced around the room. “How is it so quiet here? Where are our children?”
“How should I know?” Saul growled and sat up a little straighter. And then he rolled his eyes slowly towards her. “And they’re not our children any more, Ellen. This accelerated aging is frakking confusing, but I think I can recognize puberty and beyond.”
Ellen tsked. True, the physical acceleration had been required, as they could not develop fully functional personalities without an actual set of “childhood” memories, nor could they spare the time for a childhood in real time. The result had been erratic, but in general useful. John had progressed the farthest, and some of his siblings would end up being duplicated at much younger ages than expected, but for all that they looked beyond childhood, she could easily remember their embryonic forms from only a few years ago. They still were children in her eyes.
“I suppose the older ones are receiving their memory updates,” she mused out loud, thinking of how quickly they had enhanced the mental abilities of these new cylon children once they past puberty. “But Aaron is not ready yet, and Six and Daniel and Sharon are still so young, I would expect much more noise from them.” She turned to Saul, brow creasing for a second. “I should be worried at their silence, should I not?”
Saul rolled his eyes again. “I don’t have the first clue about children, as you well know. And neither do you, but yes, I'd guess that they're probably getting into mischief.”
Ellen frowned and rose to her feet. “I'll look into this.”
Tyrol and Tory were locked in their quarters, something that had ceased to surprise Ellen even at this time of day. Were Saul more open... But anyways, they would have had no idea of the whereabouts of her youngest ones. The elder siblings, as she’d assumed, sat at their computer consoles, eyes flicking back and forth across the screen as they read all the knowledge that their parents and centurion brethren had to offer.
Ellen frowned a little more, the longer she searched the Colony. None of the centurions had any information to offer her, and she almost headed to the raiders’ bay (Sharon was so fond of them) before hearing a faint sound off down a corridor. She walked down a few steps, then knew what she was hearing. Sam’s makeshift guitar was playing a lively tune, a familiar quickstep dance that reminded her of folk festivals back on their world. She pushed aside the quick ache for the loss of that, and focused again on the world that she and her small family had created here.
She was a couple meters from the room when she heard a small bubbly laugh, definitely Sharon’s, and knew she had come to the right place.
“Good, good!” Sam’s encouraging voice drifted out of the room along with the music.
And then she turned the corner, and stopped with her opening words hanging forgotten in her mouth.
Six, appearing on the cusp of womanhood, spun in tight circles in the center of the room, her loose white gown rippling in waves. Her feet tapped the smooth bare floor. Daniel and Sharon, much younger in looks than in actual age, held hands and spun just to the side, waving their arms and hips in time to the rhythm of the music.
Sam sat on a bench, keeping time with one foot, a broad grin on his face as his fingers danced out the bright tune. “Faster,” Sam said, picking up the pace with his song.
Daniel tripped and he and Sharon stumbled to the ground, giggling as they got up and started bouncing and swaying again to the steady beat.
“Sam!” Ellen exclaimed, astonished and almost horrified.
“Ellen,” he answered, and looked up from his guitar.
“I thought you didn’t have any interest in our project with the centurions.” Ellen put her hand on her hip. Of all of them, Sam had seemed most hesitant about creating human-form life. He’d kept out of most of the planning. “And now you’re encouraging them in wild behavior?”
Sam paused, letting the music fade out, resting his hand on the strings. “What are you talking about?”
Ellen frowned at him. “The children should be engaged in calmer activities, something to encourage maturity and introspection. Meditation, not chaos.”
“Ellen,” Sam said, sighing and letting his gaze lower. “Don’t forget that I spent the first part of my life studying the science of the cylon mind, and the human one it was based on. I know about development, and I know that stable childhoods are built around play.”
“Normal childhoods, maybe,” Ellen protested. The children remained quiet as the two of their creators talked over their head, Sharon and Daniel sitting cross-legged on the floor.
“We don’t have much of a choice, but we could at least try to make it seem normal,” Sam said earnestly, a slight furrow in his brow. “Look at the others, look at what they’re learning; it’s difficult on their minds, beyond what must be difficult naturally.”
“It is good, Sam, that they are not normal,” Ellen said, and frowned for a second. “Remember what we are trying to stop.”
“I wouldn’t trust so much in the mind being so easily altered.” But Sam left that particular subject at that. “And at the very least, this will help them to learn to appreciate music. Which is valuable especially—especially given the evidence for the greater purpose to music,” he added in a lower tone, giving her a pointed look.
“Sam,” Ellen sighed, getting the connection all too well.
“You heard the song, you know its importance.”
“I only heard it after you played it for us,” Ellen said stoutly. “It’s a particular earworm, yes, but nothing more.”
Sam's skeptical blue eyes held hers just long enough.
“Oh for god’s sake, whatever!” Ellen threw up her hands. “Let them play, let them dance, I do not care. At least they aren’t blowing anything up.”
Sam mouth curved in a small smile, then he strummed the strings of his guitar again, preparing to jump back into the music.
Ellen turned to leave. She thought of what Saul had said, and knew that in reality, none of them knew anything about raising children. If that’s what these new cylons were, which Ellen thought she believed. They were just five lost individuals without a home to find, struggling to make this work, and they couldn’t even agree on a method. In the end, Ellen supposed it wouldn’t matter. The personalities were fixed, certainly—how could these influences make a difference? What would it matter how much these younger ones cared less for knowledge, less for their purpose in life and more for loving life itself?
Ellen and her people were helping the centurions start a new civilization. It would hardly matter which individuals made up that civilization, surely.
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica
Rating: PG
Length: ~1400
Characters: Ellen, Sam, Saul, Six, Daniel, Eight, (Ellen/Saul)
Episode Setting: Pre-series
Summary: The Final Five don't have the most consistent of parenting philosophies.
Author's Notes: This may be slightly cracky, but I'm not sure there's a way to address this part of BSG canon that isn't. I'm fascinated with this time period, regardless.
Ellen watched Saul from the doorway, a twinkle in her eye as she saw him set down his worn book to reach for the bottle on the table. He’d probably read that book seven times since Earth had been destroyed, and each time it seemed to require more and more drink to stand it. She had to admit the quality wasn’t that great, the book or the drink. But it gave her amusement to watch him at it—her Saul, grumbling as he tried to survive this universe that only held five of their kind.
“Well, are you going to come in?” he demanded under his breath without looking up, and poured the glass.
“Saul,” she reprimanded slightly, walking in. “Do you say that every time you think someone’s at the door?”
“I knew it was you,” he mumbled.
Ellen sniffed the air. “New spirits?”
“Tyrol came in on the project,” Saul answered, toasting to her as he downed the first sip. His face wrinkled in grimace. “At least he knows more about it than Anders.”
“Well of course,” Ellen answered, taking his glass and sipping a little for herself. It bit strongly, and burned down the back of her throat. “Ooh—ah—yes, our Sam is hardly an expert on such matters. We must educate him better, him and Tory.” She sat next to him on the love-seat, draping her arm around his shoulder and playing with the short hairs around his ear.
“I don’t mind keeping it for just ourselves,” Saul answered, a deep rumble in his voice. He turned towards her, face close.
Ellen grinned. Then her eyes glanced around the room. “How is it so quiet here? Where are our children?”
“How should I know?” Saul growled and sat up a little straighter. And then he rolled his eyes slowly towards her. “And they’re not our children any more, Ellen. This accelerated aging is frakking confusing, but I think I can recognize puberty and beyond.”
Ellen tsked. True, the physical acceleration had been required, as they could not develop fully functional personalities without an actual set of “childhood” memories, nor could they spare the time for a childhood in real time. The result had been erratic, but in general useful. John had progressed the farthest, and some of his siblings would end up being duplicated at much younger ages than expected, but for all that they looked beyond childhood, she could easily remember their embryonic forms from only a few years ago. They still were children in her eyes.
“I suppose the older ones are receiving their memory updates,” she mused out loud, thinking of how quickly they had enhanced the mental abilities of these new cylon children once they past puberty. “But Aaron is not ready yet, and Six and Daniel and Sharon are still so young, I would expect much more noise from them.” She turned to Saul, brow creasing for a second. “I should be worried at their silence, should I not?”
Saul rolled his eyes again. “I don’t have the first clue about children, as you well know. And neither do you, but yes, I'd guess that they're probably getting into mischief.”
Ellen frowned and rose to her feet. “I'll look into this.”
Tyrol and Tory were locked in their quarters, something that had ceased to surprise Ellen even at this time of day. Were Saul more open... But anyways, they would have had no idea of the whereabouts of her youngest ones. The elder siblings, as she’d assumed, sat at their computer consoles, eyes flicking back and forth across the screen as they read all the knowledge that their parents and centurion brethren had to offer.
Ellen frowned a little more, the longer she searched the Colony. None of the centurions had any information to offer her, and she almost headed to the raiders’ bay (Sharon was so fond of them) before hearing a faint sound off down a corridor. She walked down a few steps, then knew what she was hearing. Sam’s makeshift guitar was playing a lively tune, a familiar quickstep dance that reminded her of folk festivals back on their world. She pushed aside the quick ache for the loss of that, and focused again on the world that she and her small family had created here.
She was a couple meters from the room when she heard a small bubbly laugh, definitely Sharon’s, and knew she had come to the right place.
“Good, good!” Sam’s encouraging voice drifted out of the room along with the music.
And then she turned the corner, and stopped with her opening words hanging forgotten in her mouth.
Six, appearing on the cusp of womanhood, spun in tight circles in the center of the room, her loose white gown rippling in waves. Her feet tapped the smooth bare floor. Daniel and Sharon, much younger in looks than in actual age, held hands and spun just to the side, waving their arms and hips in time to the rhythm of the music.
Sam sat on a bench, keeping time with one foot, a broad grin on his face as his fingers danced out the bright tune. “Faster,” Sam said, picking up the pace with his song.
Daniel tripped and he and Sharon stumbled to the ground, giggling as they got up and started bouncing and swaying again to the steady beat.
“Sam!” Ellen exclaimed, astonished and almost horrified.
“Ellen,” he answered, and looked up from his guitar.
“I thought you didn’t have any interest in our project with the centurions.” Ellen put her hand on her hip. Of all of them, Sam had seemed most hesitant about creating human-form life. He’d kept out of most of the planning. “And now you’re encouraging them in wild behavior?”
Sam paused, letting the music fade out, resting his hand on the strings. “What are you talking about?”
Ellen frowned at him. “The children should be engaged in calmer activities, something to encourage maturity and introspection. Meditation, not chaos.”
“Ellen,” Sam said, sighing and letting his gaze lower. “Don’t forget that I spent the first part of my life studying the science of the cylon mind, and the human one it was based on. I know about development, and I know that stable childhoods are built around play.”
“Normal childhoods, maybe,” Ellen protested. The children remained quiet as the two of their creators talked over their head, Sharon and Daniel sitting cross-legged on the floor.
“We don’t have much of a choice, but we could at least try to make it seem normal,” Sam said earnestly, a slight furrow in his brow. “Look at the others, look at what they’re learning; it’s difficult on their minds, beyond what must be difficult naturally.”
“It is good, Sam, that they are not normal,” Ellen said, and frowned for a second. “Remember what we are trying to stop.”
“I wouldn’t trust so much in the mind being so easily altered.” But Sam left that particular subject at that. “And at the very least, this will help them to learn to appreciate music. Which is valuable especially—especially given the evidence for the greater purpose to music,” he added in a lower tone, giving her a pointed look.
“Sam,” Ellen sighed, getting the connection all too well.
“You heard the song, you know its importance.”
“I only heard it after you played it for us,” Ellen said stoutly. “It’s a particular earworm, yes, but nothing more.”
Sam's skeptical blue eyes held hers just long enough.
“Oh for god’s sake, whatever!” Ellen threw up her hands. “Let them play, let them dance, I do not care. At least they aren’t blowing anything up.”
Sam mouth curved in a small smile, then he strummed the strings of his guitar again, preparing to jump back into the music.
Ellen turned to leave. She thought of what Saul had said, and knew that in reality, none of them knew anything about raising children. If that’s what these new cylons were, which Ellen thought she believed. They were just five lost individuals without a home to find, struggling to make this work, and they couldn’t even agree on a method. In the end, Ellen supposed it wouldn’t matter. The personalities were fixed, certainly—how could these influences make a difference? What would it matter how much these younger ones cared less for knowledge, less for their purpose in life and more for loving life itself?
Ellen and her people were helping the centurions start a new civilization. It would hardly matter which individuals made up that civilization, surely.
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