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all of my songs are for you, all of my songs are sad

CHARACTERS: Leoben Conoy, Kara "Starbuck" Thrace
LOCATION: Shuttle Bay
WARNINGS: BSG-style swearing likely from Starbuck?
SUMMARY: Leoben has decided it's past time for him and Starbuck to clear the air a little. The sad-eyed ~~stalking~~ pining on his side and grumpy avoidance and denial on hers don't seem to be getting anywhere, and then there's the matter of the masks...

Another timeless day on the Tranquility, another set of hours to fill or not fill with the work of his hands or mind, or to spend adrift in meditation.

Leoben had spent enough days on his own, he decided. As unhappy as his home universe was, and as isolated as he'd felt by the end, there had at least always been others around for company - his brother Twos, and the Hybrids in the basestars with their visionary rambling. He'd made a few friends here, which was a new and surprisingly meaningful thing for him. But there was always a single hope sleeping restlessly under every thought, and he hadn't even spoken to her in so long.

Besides, there were the masks to be discussed. Starbuck's was still hanging on her door, and it was...worrisome. This afternoon, when Kara Thrace was working in the Shuttle Bay, she was going to have a visitor approaching quietly behind her.

Leoben stood for an unmeasured time watching her, two masks wrapped up in towels held under his arm. Finally, in his usual soft tones: "You know Kara, I can fly a shuttle. I could probably repair one, too."

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For the most part Kara had been doing her usual - keeping a low profile and working down in the bay - it wasn't a very odd thing to her or most people she figured. So the moment she heard his voice (she knew that voice anywhere – it’s in her thoughts more than she would perhaps like to admit) she couldn't help but close her eyes a moment, taking one long deep breath as she collected herself (well as much as Kara could - which isn't that much, let's be real) finally mumbling as her attention stayed on the ship in front of her.

"You could kill us all too, so what's your point?" It's a bit harsh perhaps, but she has been trying like hell to avoid him for the most part - it was easier than having to deal with whatever was going on with them.

"Yeah. I probably could." He shrugged, and smiled down at his feet. "But that's not a skill that's much in demand, is it? There's a lot more people around this ship who're qualified to kill than to fix and fly spacecraft."

Kara just rolled her eyes at that, turning, wrench in hand to face him. "And why should I trust that you wont try to harm them?" She asked her tone dry as she let out a long sigh.

"Why would I want to hurt them?" he asked. Not offended, just arguing a theoretical point.

He smiled when she turned around. He always smiled when he saw her face. "I've seen notices the flight crew is looking for recruits. I would've signed up before but I thought you needed time." I'm a patient man, he'd told her on New Caprica. Not that she'd remember that.

Her brow just arched at that, sending him a clear unimpressed look. She could think of a million reasons why she thinks he might want to hurt them. "Not even going to answer that." Because really, does she have to even get into that with him and sit here and debate with a toaster who plays mind games?

"What exactly did you think I needed time with though, Leoben?" She asked, her hands going to her hip as she found herself somewhat curious as to his thoughts here. "That I'd come around and realize just how frakken amazing you were." Because that sure as frak wasn't going to happen.

"That'd be nice," he agreed. "But I'd settle for realizing I've been here for months and haven't hurt you or anybody else. Last time I saw you, you came looking for me and then went off in a huff when I offered you a drink. I figured if I came pushing my way into someplace you needed to think of as safe it'd be even odds I'd get a gun waved at me."

Kara doesn't say anything for a moment, simply giving him a hard look in thought. She knows cylons are manipulative and she would be stupid if she pretended that they weren't, but there is a part of her that is trying to understand Leoben and his motives more here and somewhat wants to think what he is saying is honest (that frustrates her to no end).

"What is that?" She sharply asks as she nods towards whatever he has in a towel, simply attempting to change the subject for a moment as she thinks about how she should approach it all.

"Something we should talk about." As if in apology for this enigmatic statement, however, in the next second he was kneeling down and setting the bundle on the floor, head bent down vulnerably. Taking care only to touch the towel and not the thing itself, he unrolled it halfway to reveal the mask he'd taken from her door.

The look she gave him the moment she realized it was her mask, was one of more annoyance and somewhat confusion. As she honestly didn't understand why he would have even taken the time to stop by her room to see it, let alone take it.

Sure the fact that it was a Cylon was a bit of a surprise, even to Kara, but she really was doing all she could not to focus much of her thought on it - it was easier that way. "Why'd you take it?" She asked as her brow arched in question to him.

His hand hovered over the mask's surface for a moment, almost but not quite touching. "Because it's interesting. And it's interesting that you just left it hanging up there for other people to see."

Her arms folded across her chest at that, her brow furrowing in slight question. She may not be all too impressed with it, but she wasn't going to be like the rest of them and hide it like the silly folks they were. Leaving it where it was, only seemed like the logical thing to her at them time - it was easier to forget about it when she was never there anyway. "Why?"

"Haven't you wondered what they are?" he said, staring fascinated at the face of the Cylon mask - the Centurion, the image most humans would have had of the Cylon before learning of the humanoid models. Answering his own question: "They're our fears. Our doubts, our furies, our regrets given physical form. A dark reflection."

Looking up again to meet her eyes, and smiling ever so slightly, Leoben added, "Most people try to hide them."

"It's a frakken machine." She snapped as she sent a hard glare down at the mask, not wanting to even consider any of what he was saying and what it might hold for her. "It's not me."

A long beat, her posture tensing slightly as she turned her attention back onto him. "And I'm not most people. Haven't you all told me that before?" At least the others did, calling her the harbinger and what not.

"It's not a machine. It's a representation of one. Of what you think a Cylon is. What we mean to you. The Enemy, the Other, something to be hated and distrusted and feared. It's a part of you not because you're a Cylon yourself," (though part of him wondered if she'd been afraid of that, doubted herself and her own memories. Maybe. Although it was more likely to have been later, with the other Kara. The broken one, wreathed in light) "but because those emotions are part of you. Part of how you define yourself."

"And no, you're not most people. You have a destiny. But you aren't comfortable with that, with people seeing what illuminates you. Anymore than you're comfortable with people caring about you. Better to show them your darkness, your anger. You're afraid you'll frack up, never be good enough. Better to be a soldier and let others make the choices - but you can't do that either, can you. Because sometimes they're wrong."

His voice was growing dreamy, a little hesitant, a little tender. Mesmerizing. "And sometimes you can ignore that itch under your skin, that ache in your lungs, telling you there's something out there meant for you, something you're meant to do or be. Soak it in alcohol or beat it off with both fists. Tell yourself it's just your mother's crazy ideas, fracking with your head. But you are special, Kara Thrace. It shines out of you for anyone with eyes to see."

Edited 2012-11-29 07:08 (UTC)

Her jaw clenched as she sets him with a hard stare, not saying anything for a good long moment, simply because she didn’t know what to say. Because really, what was there to say? He was right? That he knew her? That he knew the things that kept her up at nights alone in her bunk?

Frak no.

Sure he knew her, she didn't understand how or why (aside from her assuming he was just messing with her to get inside her head) but he knew her like no one else had ever known her, and that scared her more than she even knew how to express. "So what do you want me to do?" She suddenly shot in question; letting her expression turn to something more of anger and clear frustration as she crossed her arms in front of her, letting her posture go tense.

"Put on the mask and tell you my deep dark fears and things that keep me up at night?" Because that is all that it was, things that were there to mess with her mind, to make her the person that she was.

"No," he said, sounding honestly surprised. "No. I want you to look at it and see it for what it is. Your darkness is part of you, but it's not the only part."

He shook his head, a little frustrated with the inadequacy of words. The humanoid Cylon used the spoken word whenever possible, believing it to be God's will they should do so, and most of the time Leoben appreciated language and its capacity for nuance. But sometimes it just. Didn't function properly, somehow.

"Look," he said, huffing out a sigh, and unrolling the cloth further to show his own mask. The lower part was made of iron, rough, and looked a little like a centurion's face, and a little like a nondescript human face. Behind the hollow eyes, a red horizontal beam of light flashed intermittently. Above, though, the forehead spread out into something organic-looking, tree branches reaching out, with a gold picture frame, about hand-sized, set off-center among them. The picture showed an empty niche, blood on the floor and walls, centered around a stone pedestal where a statue had been broken away at the feet.

He hadn't shown it to anyone, had taken it down from his door as soon as he was able to, but had spent hours contemplating in his room alone. But Kara - Kara deserved to see it, if anyone did.

"You can hate the Cylon. I'm pretty sure you always will." She had, in his memories. But she'd learned to love a few, too: a comrade, a husband - even if it had been a grudging love for Athena and a faithless love for Sam. Leoben thought - hoped? - hoped against hope? that she'd loved him too, at least a little. "But we're not as simple an enemy, a people, as you're trying to make yourself believe. You know that, or you would if you'd let yourself. And acting like I'm always going to default to trying to hurt you isn't getting us anywhere."

"I would never hurt you."

"So what’s that suppose to say about you then?" She mumbled as her attention moved down to his mask, fixing it with a hard stare as she thought about what he said. From the moment she met Leoben, he was a mystery to her after all - someone or something, that was put there to get her to think – to react. Sure, he was right, she would always find a reason to hate the cylons and her mask might actually have shown more of her darkness than she even wanted to admit to. But even with that, she really didn't understand why he was so willing to be like this with her, why he was showing her things and telling her things like he was, and that was something she needed to understand if she wanted to move past all of this.

"Because you say you would never hurt me." She suddenly continued as she looked back up at him, her expression becoming almost challenging, just wanting to finally get to the bottom of it all. "Prove it. Tell me what you want to gain from being like this with me. Tell me why you aren’t like the others set out to kill me and everyone else. Tell me how you know me."

"Guess you'd have to know me better to understand," he said lightly. (Not that anyone really did. Not that anyone, in his memory, had ever really tried to understand the Leobens.) But her next words showed that response wasn't going to fly.

It was so obvious to Leoben. The way he felt about her. His intentions. He wasn't even trying to hide it - hadn't tried since he got here. Instead, he'd thrown hints out far and wide, rarely bothering to lock communications and talking at length about the conflict between the Cylon and the humans. The losses his own people had suffered, the price they had paid for peace. If he'd been monitoring himself...

But nobody ever seemed to think quite like the Leobens did, did they? And Kara least of all. He loved her forthright nature and stubbornness, but it made things so difficult. Because she didn't think to follow the trail of breadcrumbs he'd been artfully strewing for her for months now, but neither, he suspected, could he just...tell her. Tell her all of it. Part of him longed to make a full confession of all his sins against her and against God. Lay everything before her and let her judge him. If she'd followed the clues he gave her when he first arrived, she probably could have pushed through and gotten a much fuller story than she might have wanted.

But he had been here for months now, and made friends. Been relieved of some of his burden by telling the two Sixes the news of their futures, and gotten to know all kinds of other species, introducing himself as himself: a Cylon, a Two, but also an individual. And the parts of him that held all that precious also knew himself well enough to know that his ability to accept those blessings was contingent on his keep himself from despair. And that depended on being able to tell himself that Kara was here, alive again, and he still had a chance to make things right.

Those parts, and his own instinct towards deception told him this: Kara had never reacted well to the plain truth as he knew it. I love you. We're meant to be together. You are God's chosen instrument, and I'm destined to guide in His path. I'll do anything to make that happen.

"Because," he said, after a short pause. "Because I have every reason to believe this is my last chance, Kara Thrace. There aren't any resurrection ships here. There aren't any left in our world, in my time. And I," he hadn't told anyone this, and doubted anyone, even the most twisty-minded of his friends had guessed. He offered her this part of the truth with a sad little quirk of a smile beneath the burning intensity of his eyes. "I remember dying, in our world."

"This is the only body, the only life I have left. I shouldn't even have it, because that was a real death. It's my last and only chance, and I can't waste it. That's all I want. Not to waste it.

"And you're here, which has to mean something. You..." Another pause. "I know you because I've seen you. In visions - I've had visions of you since the beginning - but on this plane, too. I've been with you on your journey, over the course of years. The last time you saw me, that isn't the last time I saw you. Not...not even close. We. You were...important to me." Terrible understatement, ugly to him, but what else could he say that she'd accept?

(The others had called him the Harbinger's Two, and eyed him with suspicion and fear as they said it. Even the other Twos, because he alone among his brothers would no longer share memories, or explain what he had seen when he went off together with Kara in the ruins of the old Earth.)

Because it seemed to be time, because the moment felt right, Leoben let as many of his walls fall as he could, to show her every bit of longing and adoration and desire and sorrow and awe he'd ever felt for her, or as much as could be shown in one face, in one pair of eyes. "How much of this story do you want, Kara?"

If things had been different, maybe she would have seen the signs, seen the way he was with her and how he was trying to show her the real him. But her being here over the course of months had in fact; slowly caused her to become more guarded than she had in a long time. It’s not that she didn’t know how to deal with the unexpected situations – she was the best at thinking outside the box after all. It was just the constant unknowns here and all the people that were in a sense depending on her that caused her to constantly remind herself of what the cylons were capable of and how they couldn’t be trusted.

So at his words, she can’t help but furrow her brow in a deep thought, clenching her jaw as she silently thought about just what he was saying. He, like all the others (well the two sixes) that had been here before, all seemed to know so much more about her than she did herself, and trying to separate any of what they said from what she knew, was something she hadn’t yet understood how to do (or perhaps just didn’t want to let herself do). But of all the cylons that had been here, it was Leoben that had her almost stopping, considering, wondering just what might be the actual truth behind his words, and just what might actually be something of use to her and understanding who she was and why she was here.

“I want the truth...” She pointed out, shooting him with a sharp look as she took a deep breath. “I don’t want some frakken story you all came up with.” A short beat and she was adding with a tinge of curiosity in her voice. “I wanna know why we’re here.”

He almost laughed - it was so like her, to be all determination and skepticism when what he wanted was her trust. Her understanding. Instead he let out a short, frustrated breath, then shook his head.

"The only story I agreed on with the Sixes - with Natalie and Caprica - was the truth. Specifically, the truth about being Cylon. I told them I didn't see much point in lying about it here.

He met her eyes again, with a wry tilt to his head. "Both of them were from points earlier in the stream. Caprica from years back, Natalie from a few months. So from your perspective they knew things. Knew enough to use the Hybrid's phrase: the Harbinger of Death. But not what it meant, or they might not have used it.

"I could've told them all kinds of lies, but as a matter of fact I didn't. I told them the truth: where I had left Caprica - alive and well, with the man she loves, at peace on New Earth. And I told Natalie she hadn't died in vain: that those of us who sought alliance with humanity as the will of God," (bringing up the Final Five and the exact details of the Cylon civil war would only confuse the issue here) "had fought those who had betrayed us in pursuit of humanity's final extinction. And won.

Shrug, smile. "It's...been a busy few years.

"And maybe I kept one or two things from both of them, because they didn't need to know how much we'd lost in the process. How many of us died, and all of us rendered mortal. And how much that changes you, knowing you've only got one life ahead of you and it's always going to be in danger. But for the most part, I told them what I've been telling you all along. And anyone else here who asked. You can go back in the network and check.

"As for why we're here. Well, both of them knew well enough that it wasn't our doing. The Cylon have never had the technology to do...this. To cross into other worlds and times. To bring the dead to life again. All the rest of it." The whole history of the Cylon race and humanity would have been very, very different if they had. "So I can tell you that we're here because it's God's will, and that there must be some purpose to it. But beyond that. Well, that's when we've entered the realm of what I think and suspect, based on visions and dreams. And I know you don't always have much patience for what I have to say there." (Kara had more, to be fair, than most people did - had heard too much truth from him to be able to dismiss him entirely as a crackpot. But that didn't mean she accepted it. Not always. Not often.)

She rolls her eyes some, her head shaking at it all as she turns back to her work for a moment, not brushing him off, but oddly enough; showing him she isn't expecting him to attack her like she might the others (which is a big thing in her mind) as she mumbles in thought for him to hear. "So you aren't like the rest of them - aren't I the lucky one." Of course she knew he wasn't like the rest of them - from the moment she met him, she knew that much, but saying it aloud was a step more than she had ever done before she felt.

A long beat as she started fiddling with one of the wires she was messing with on the shuttle, and she is adding with a tinge of curiosity to her words. "That mean I should maybe give you a chance here?" Let you prove yourself?

He shrugged, looking down, his hands clasped. "The Twos have always been a little ... different, if you ask most of the other humanoid models. But I ... if I'm not like the rest of my line, that's because of you, Kara.

"I'd like it if you gave me a chance."

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all of my songs are for you, all of my songs are sad

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sob. im sorry this took so long ;_;

<3 no worries.

tags this from phone (sorry)

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