(TM) 253. Hope
Dec. 3rd, 2008 03:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
admiral_adamaWhat do you hope for?
To hope for something you must both want it and believe in it. Hope is both beautiful and treacherous, an object of both reverence and suspicion. It is the doctor for our ills, the controller of our fears, the liar in which so many still trust. Faith, operating independent of logic and reason, reaches out a hand in the dark and offers hope.
And you want to know what I hope for?
For these past few years, if anyone had asked me that question, I would have said, “Nothing.” Not for myself. Since the Exodus, I've dedicated my life to keeping alive the hopes of others. Hope for survival against the Cylons, hope of sanctuary on Earth, hope for a life no longer on the run. I could keep my private cynicism, not having to believe or want so long as I could make those possibilities real for those under my command and in my charge. Focus on their needs, not my own.
After so much loss, of love, of one son to death and another to estrangement, topped off by the loss of billions of lives and the worlds that birthed us when the Cylons destroyed the Colonies ... I didn't want to hope again.
But hope can also be a patient, stealthy bastard, sneaking up on us when we least expect it. I sent Kara off in the Demetrius in the hope that her insistence that she knew the way to Earth wasn't an illusion. I stood by Lee's side and saw him sworn in as President of the Twelve Colonies, hoping that his steady resolve would be enough to keep the fleet from dissolving into chaos. But real as those hopes were, I still held them for the fleet, not for myself.
But when I decided to wait in a Raptor while the rest of the fleet jumped away, I couldn't fool myself any longer. There I sat, alone in space, hoping-- a hope against hope, that one –that a base star which logic said was probably destroyed along with the Cylon resurrection hub would make it to the rendezvous point. Hoping that Laura Roslin was on that base star, safe and well. Hoping.
This hope, however, was for no one but me.
When I saw the flare of light that announced the base star's arrival, my hope flared as well, almost painfully strong. When my Raptor's hatch lowered to reveal Laura, standing alone at the foot of the ramp with tears of relief in her eyes, I knew then that hope doesn't always lie.
But not until I pulled her close and heard her whisper I love you did I realize ... sometimes hope gives you more than you asked for.
Muse: Admiral William Adama
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica '03
Word count: 453
To hope for something you must both want it and believe in it. Hope is both beautiful and treacherous, an object of both reverence and suspicion. It is the doctor for our ills, the controller of our fears, the liar in which so many still trust. Faith, operating independent of logic and reason, reaches out a hand in the dark and offers hope.
And you want to know what I hope for?
For these past few years, if anyone had asked me that question, I would have said, “Nothing.” Not for myself. Since the Exodus, I've dedicated my life to keeping alive the hopes of others. Hope for survival against the Cylons, hope of sanctuary on Earth, hope for a life no longer on the run. I could keep my private cynicism, not having to believe or want so long as I could make those possibilities real for those under my command and in my charge. Focus on their needs, not my own.
After so much loss, of love, of one son to death and another to estrangement, topped off by the loss of billions of lives and the worlds that birthed us when the Cylons destroyed the Colonies ... I didn't want to hope again.
But hope can also be a patient, stealthy bastard, sneaking up on us when we least expect it. I sent Kara off in the Demetrius in the hope that her insistence that she knew the way to Earth wasn't an illusion. I stood by Lee's side and saw him sworn in as President of the Twelve Colonies, hoping that his steady resolve would be enough to keep the fleet from dissolving into chaos. But real as those hopes were, I still held them for the fleet, not for myself.
But when I decided to wait in a Raptor while the rest of the fleet jumped away, I couldn't fool myself any longer. There I sat, alone in space, hoping-- a hope against hope, that one –that a base star which logic said was probably destroyed along with the Cylon resurrection hub would make it to the rendezvous point. Hoping that Laura Roslin was on that base star, safe and well. Hoping.
This hope, however, was for no one but me.
When I saw the flare of light that announced the base star's arrival, my hope flared as well, almost painfully strong. When my Raptor's hatch lowered to reveal Laura, standing alone at the foot of the ramp with tears of relief in her eyes, I knew then that hope doesn't always lie.
But not until I pulled her close and heard her whisper I love you did I realize ... sometimes hope gives you more than you asked for.
Muse: Admiral William Adama
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica '03
Word count: 453
