| It Has Been A Long Week |
| Summary: | Cidra visits Sawyer in battlestar lock-up and the pair talk on things Gemenon and the recent Cylon revelations. |
| Date: | 24 Apr 2042 AE |
| Related Logs: | Mostly With Friends Like These; and Eleven Makes Three |
| Players: |
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| The Brig - Cerberus |
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| A cell, with bars and a lack of privacy. |
| Post-Holocaust Day: #422 |
Sawyer should be an old hat at this whole captivity thing by now, but one thing she hasn't gotten the hang of is using the bathroom out in the open. It's a tiresome affair, to peel her blanket off the bed and hang it around her like a shroud, tucking it beneath her chin and having to work down her sweatpants with the other hand. She's at the tail end of this little ordeal now, unwrapping the cover from around her form and tossing it onto cot. Then it's back to pacing.
Cidra is shown into the area where Sawyer's brigged by a Marine MP. The CAG looks tired and mussed in a way that may be familiar to the reporter who observed her descent into heavy chamalla smoking and general disarray a few months back. Duty blue jacket unbottoned and somewhat mussed, and there's a red-rimmed quality about her eyes. Perhaps that's why it's taken her some time to wander down here. "Thank you, Lance Corporal," she offers in a polite but monotone to the MP. Sawyer's bathroom dance with the blanket is blinked at. For the moment she just says nothing until the reporter settles back to pacing.
Sawyer turns to walk back to the other side of the cell and notices the CAG there, a rudiness to her cheeks immediately springing up. "You'd think living on a military ship for a year, one thing I'd have gotten used to by now is the co-ed bathroom situation. It's a whole other ball of wax when a camera is involved, too." She steps forward to the bars, uncertainty on her features. "Thanks for coming, Cidra. I…I wasn't sure if you would. How's Kal? How are you?"
"It is has been a long week." Cidra leaves it at that. She's wearing her Lieutenant Colonel's pins now, and they're a bit more apparant as she irritably flicks her somewhat mussed dark hair over her shoulder. "I am glad you returned safely. I am sorry I did not get to see you sooner. I had…things." She leaves it vague. "Bootstrap is coming along well. Lieutenant Colonel Baer very nearly succeeded in obliterating his ECO console with a blast of Viper gunnery, but Boots managed to survive that. He is out of Sickbay now. On light duty, but he shall continue to trouble us all very much for the foreseeable future."
"That sounds much worse than Lieutenant Vandenberg let on." Sawyer's face darkens for a moment, but she keeps on speaking in that excited sort of ramble. "The guards said he had stopped by, but I was sleeping. I wish he would have woken me, but…maybe it's better. It'd be heartbreaking not to be able to touch him." The journalist's eyes fixate on Cidra's collar, and a slight smile appears at the corner of her mouth in little apostrophes. "You've gotten yourself a promotion. Congratulations, Cid. You've earned it. And don't worry, I know you can't divulge anything of what's really going on out there, not that it's not killing me to not know. Hey, do you have a cigarette? The won't let me have a pack or a lighter, but you could pass one through the bars."
"Yes. They promoted me. After I had gotten captured and done so much else to deserve it," is Cidra's deadpan reply to the congratulations. "Because I have shown such sterling judgment of late. In all my affairs." As for the cigarette she asks the MP for permission which, after some back and forth, is granted. Cidra lights up on of her omnipresent cheap Picon cigarettes and hands it to Sawyer through the bars. "Truth? I can make little sense of what is going on out there. How are you?"
"Cid? You deserved it. I don't know what happened on the Areion, but you deserved it. At least in my eyes. Not that my opinion counts for much, lately." The last is said with almost amusement in Sawyer's voice, in fact it is accompanied by a snort of laughter. "Thanks." Sawyer pulls the cigarette through the bars, mindful not to let her fingers touch the CAG lest some marines come in and try to tackle the woman or something. "But me? Me, I'm great. I'm…more than great. Worried, of course, but life is just so much more beyond me and my needs now. I mean so beyond. Did they tell you were we were? We were on Gemenon, Cid. Gemenon!"
Cidra speaks not of what happened on the Areion, though her frown deepens. "Gemenon…" It is murmured soft. "I have heard you did jump there in that Raptor. And I heard tell of the abomination that took you and Mister Bannik there." Not McQueen. The abomination.
"I…I threw up when I heard of Rejn. I mean, my gods, my heart was ripped right from my chest. I imagine you must feel similiar, about the McQueen-Two. I'm sorry for that, Cid. Truly." Sawyer draws on the cigarette, eyes turning thoughtful. "It was very surreal, to be walking among several just like him. Like he had scads of twin brothers only this one has had a beard, and so on. I was pissed. Man I was pissed. I think I would have shot the frakker right there and left me floating around in the black with his corpse had it not been for Tyr."
"The creature that called itself Trevor Cairn McQueen is a traitor and enemy agent, and gods only knows what it has carried back to the enemy. I should have seen it. It is not like Salt. Salt I barely spoke to beyond a rubber-stamping meeting when he reported in for duty. I knew none of them then. Queenie…" She bites her tongue. "*It* flew with us for months. Struck up friendships with us. I never saw it. I was blind. I should have known." If Cidra has any feelings on it beyond that, she keeps them tightly clamped down.
Sawyer takes a few steps back to her bunk, not that a few steps wouldn't just take her to any other corner of her cell. "The Rejn-One. McQueen-Two. Salt…whatever model he was supposed to be, I don't recall. But they…they all seemed to go against what their original calling is. I get what you're saying, I do. I feel betrayed by Rejn. I helped the frakking man get /sober/ once, for crying out loud. And I'm not saying we can just set that aside, but what I am saying is that the war has gone on long enough. If there is a way to a truce…we need to be able to sit down with them across a table from one another and see if some sort of agreement can be made. The Elevens and the Twos no longer seem to see the merit in the Cylon crusade. And the Salt model? They spoke of him with some sort of…finality. Like…he was gone for good."
"Twelve. Salt was a Twelve." Cidra hasn't put her cigarette pack away, and now she lights up one for herself. She says nothing on the idea of a 'truce' right away. She just smokes. "Have you read the initial post-attacks reports from our recons, Sawyer? The ones for Gemenon were ever-strange. Ever…retributive. The Cylons nuked not only our cities, but our holy places. Each one. Nuked with impunity. And now they burrow into it for some twisted purpose of their own and talk of 'peace.' After killing us by the billions." A long drag. "What is the state of Gemenon? Did you see much of it?"
"I don't trust them. I can't trust them, no matter how much I want to just hope with every fiber of my being that we could. I'm not asking anyone to, I'm just asking for someone to listen." Sawyer makes a sweep of her hand to pull her hair back from her eyes as they close, a pinch at their very corners. "We didn't see much. Just the temple at the Falls and some little township that no one seemed to actually give a name. I wasn't familiar with it, myself. Maybe a tourist town focused on the Temple? Just a closer up view of what we saw on the Recon those of us who had the dream were allowed to attend."
"How many people were there?" The question is asked softly by Cidra, as if she's reluctant to voice it. "Humans, I mean. Not the Elevens. Not the abomination Twos. The people. The humans we saw in that recon footage. Did they…did anyone speak of survivors from Dryope Province? From the city of Shirkirsei, in the low valleys?"
"Honey, I…" Not Cidra. Honey. Because Sawyer looks absolutely gut-wrenched as she shakes her head. "It was impossible to get a good headcount. I wish I could tell you. And while I got to speak with numerous of our own kind down there, I couldn't interview each one to fiqure out where they were from. I know for certain, that when the Elevens and Twos find survivors, they do their best to bring them there to Brother Solon. There are women and children and men of varying ages, left to their own devices, and may the gods help me, Cid - they were living. Not in the breathing sense but in the sense that they were living their lives. They each worked for their little community, providing the food and shelter and clothing they all require. And they were doing it right along side the humanoid models and Centurians they referred to as 'freed'."
Cidra nods, just holding her cigarette between her fingertips and blinking rapidly. Tears standing in her eyes, though she doesn't let them fall. It's a long moment before she speaks again, voice rough. "I see. Well. They would show you what they wanted us to see. There is still no proof this is not all a Cylon trap. And yet…why do they not destroy us, when we give them so many opportunities? Why…?" She shakes her head. "It does not matter just now. What do you mean, 'freed'?"
"I wish I could say it wasn't contrived, but how could I? That'd be my heart talking over my head. What I do know, is that the humans there genuinely seemed to be in charge of their own persons. They didn't seem to be operating under fear, at least not of the Cylons they were living amongst. Just fear of the uncertainty that life on unprotected Gemenon means for them. If it was a rouse, I'm telling you now, it was a damn fine one. And you know how much I love to find cracks." Sawyer pauses long enough to take another drag from her cigarette, which doesn't seem to be abating that pained look from near her eyes. "Freed. See, I asked about that too, and it's as if the Cylons were being vague or honestly didn't know how to describe it to me. The closest to an answer that I could get was that they 'returned to their god'. If I had to hazard a guess, it would be that they somehow transcended their programming too. Cid? I'm…frak, I'm sorry. I'm getting a horrific headache. I haven't been able to take my migraine medication with any regularity for like…ha! Three weeks now?"
"Three weeks…my gods, you have been in and out of lock-up alarmingly, have you not?" Cidra can't help but smirk, though it's a weak expression. She nods. "I hope they shall have you out of here soon. For my part, I do not believe you and Mister Bannik were any part of the abomination's activities on the hangar deck. And…well. I need to unwind. I suspect we both do." She leaves it at that. And off she goes.