(TM) 176. Scars, Stories and Lessons
May. 8th, 2007 01:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
admiral_adamaTell the story of one of your past scars.
If scars tell stories, then William Adama's body wears an anthology.
Most of those marks could not easily be seen by an observer, even were the observer to examine him as he examines himself now, shirtless and facing the mirror in his head. They date to the First Cylon War and even earlier; forty-plus years have rendered them nearly or totally invisible against the mellow tan of his skin. He, however, can still find them by sight or touch as needed, remembering their stories ... and their lessons.
A handful of scars do stand out, recent enough to still be obvious. Command responsibilities can take the man off the front lines, but every so often the front lines come to him.
He runs two fingers down the line bisecting his chest, thinking of the young medic who dealt him that wound in a desperate bid to restart his stopped heart. His hand moves left, finds the two smaller, puckered scars that marked the cause of that stoppage. He thinks of the young woman-- he no longer feels obligated to shove Cylon into that description --who gave him those, and he wonders what she's doing right now. He knows she was on New Caprica, knows she returned to Galactica briefly with a delegation of Cylons and Gaius Baltar. Tigh and Athena prevented her from getting within line of sight of him and did not reveal the identity of that particular Eight until after she'd left the ship. He understands why.
He still wishes they had let him talk to her.
His right hand drops to his side as his left comes up to his temple. The ridge of scar tissue there doesn't draw the eye as it once did, the result of both time and somewhat longer hair. Strange how he clearly remembers the sting of having that wound hurriedly cleaned and stitched, but he has no memory of pain from the blow that caused it. Or not so strange, given the adrenalin rush of the brutal fight and berserker rage that gave him the strength to bludgeon his opponent to death. He wonders if he guessed correctly about that Cylon's inability to download from Ragnar Anchorage, or if he'd been wrong and the bastard made it back to another body.
Given what one of the same model did to Kara on New Caprica, he hopes he was right.
But those aren't the stories that need retelling. Everyone on Galactica, hell, everyone in the fleet knows those tales, and to Bill they've grown thin with repetition. No, very few people know about the scar preying on his mind right now. He got it, not from a manipulative Cylon enemy or a confused Cylon plant, but from one of his own species.
His fingers travel only a fraction of an inch further into the hair at his temple to find the healing split, the point where his head impacted the table into which Danny "Bulldog" Novachek threw him. He remembers Danny's own berserk fury, burning bright in his eyes, fueled by years of captivity in the hands of the Cylons, focused into his hands as he did his damnedest to crush his former commander's windpipe.
After all, Bill Adama sent him to that captivity, when he ordered Novachek's experimental craft shot down.
Three times since the fall of the Colonies, Bill has been as close to death as he ever was in a Viper cockpit. Each time left its mark. But the scar that hurts worst is not the biggest, deepest or even the most life-threatening.
No, the scar that hurts worst is the one he feels he most deserved.
Muse: Admiral William Adama
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica '03
Word count: 605
If scars tell stories, then William Adama's body wears an anthology.
Most of those marks could not easily be seen by an observer, even were the observer to examine him as he examines himself now, shirtless and facing the mirror in his head. They date to the First Cylon War and even earlier; forty-plus years have rendered them nearly or totally invisible against the mellow tan of his skin. He, however, can still find them by sight or touch as needed, remembering their stories ... and their lessons.
A handful of scars do stand out, recent enough to still be obvious. Command responsibilities can take the man off the front lines, but every so often the front lines come to him.
He runs two fingers down the line bisecting his chest, thinking of the young medic who dealt him that wound in a desperate bid to restart his stopped heart. His hand moves left, finds the two smaller, puckered scars that marked the cause of that stoppage. He thinks of the young woman-- he no longer feels obligated to shove Cylon into that description --who gave him those, and he wonders what she's doing right now. He knows she was on New Caprica, knows she returned to Galactica briefly with a delegation of Cylons and Gaius Baltar. Tigh and Athena prevented her from getting within line of sight of him and did not reveal the identity of that particular Eight until after she'd left the ship. He understands why.
He still wishes they had let him talk to her.
His right hand drops to his side as his left comes up to his temple. The ridge of scar tissue there doesn't draw the eye as it once did, the result of both time and somewhat longer hair. Strange how he clearly remembers the sting of having that wound hurriedly cleaned and stitched, but he has no memory of pain from the blow that caused it. Or not so strange, given the adrenalin rush of the brutal fight and berserker rage that gave him the strength to bludgeon his opponent to death. He wonders if he guessed correctly about that Cylon's inability to download from Ragnar Anchorage, or if he'd been wrong and the bastard made it back to another body.
Given what one of the same model did to Kara on New Caprica, he hopes he was right.
But those aren't the stories that need retelling. Everyone on Galactica, hell, everyone in the fleet knows those tales, and to Bill they've grown thin with repetition. No, very few people know about the scar preying on his mind right now. He got it, not from a manipulative Cylon enemy or a confused Cylon plant, but from one of his own species.
His fingers travel only a fraction of an inch further into the hair at his temple to find the healing split, the point where his head impacted the table into which Danny "Bulldog" Novachek threw him. He remembers Danny's own berserk fury, burning bright in his eyes, fueled by years of captivity in the hands of the Cylons, focused into his hands as he did his damnedest to crush his former commander's windpipe.
After all, Bill Adama sent him to that captivity, when he ordered Novachek's experimental craft shot down.
Three times since the fall of the Colonies, Bill has been as close to death as he ever was in a Viper cockpit. Each time left its mark. But the scar that hurts worst is not the biggest, deepest or even the most life-threatening.
No, the scar that hurts worst is the one he feels he most deserved.
Muse: Admiral William Adama
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica '03
Word count: 605
