Author: Flora Stuart
Recipient: liptonrm
Rating: PG
Fandoms: Firefly/Battlestar Galactica 2003
Summary: It's been almost a year, and he looks to see chrome soldiers marching along the main street any minute.
The bar is nothing remarkable - a leaking roof and sand on the floor, smoke in the air. A few corners dark enough to hide in for a while, and raw, homemade liquor that reminds Tigh of illegal stills hidden behind packing crates on a battlestar's flight deck. He doesn't expect to be noticed, doesn't respond at first when a shadow falls across the table.
You in the War? the Captain asks, and he looks up, takes in the man's worn brown overcoat, young face and old eyes. It's been almost a year, and he's been here long enough to know what war the man's talking about - even knows enough to guess which side he was on.
And he nods, says, not your war.
It's been almost a year, and he looks to see chrome soldiers marching along the main street any minute. Almost a year since they landed on New Caprica, days after he left the ship. Almost a year since Galactica jumped away without him.
He doesn't know where he is - not in relation to the Colonies, or any star charts he studied when he was in the Fleet - and he isn't sure how he got here, but it's been long enough to learn the history, hear the stories, read the scars. People out here talk about the War, and the scars still show. Even in the civilians, the stiff pride and the humiliation of losing, the stubborn hatred of anything Alliance and Tigh doesn't quite get it.
He remembers the day the Articles of Colonization were signed. Remembers protestors marching on Picon, riots and cars burning on Sagittaron. He remembers the uncertainty of a the new political reality, falling into place almost by default out of a military alliance welded together in desperation. We stand together, or fall one by one. He remembers swearing a new oath, to a new constitution, how quickly everything changed in the shock of the Cylons' first betrayal.
These people have their homesteads and their crops and their spaceports and what's left of their families, and some of their children are gone and some are half-gone with ghosts in their eyes but the land still yields grain and a man can walk around outdoors without taking anti-radiation meds every day. He saw too much on New Caprica, heard too much from Thrace about what the toasters did back on the Colonies, remembers twenty years ago too clearly still to sympathize.
Twenty years ago, losing the war meant the annihilation of humanity, and he remembers staring the real possibility in the face, darkness like the inside of a gun barrel, still wakes up and he can taste it, smell burnt wiring and leaking fuel and feel his Viper spinning out of control.
These people fought for principles, and they lost. But he remembers when it was about fighting for their lives, fighting to continue to exists as a species. He remembers they made it work, a rocky alliance at first, but no one believed the Cylons wouldn't be back, in those early years. They made it work, because they had no other choice.
Made it work for twenty years, and then the counterattack came, garbled radio reports and casualty lists, fire and flag-draped coffins and for the first time in twenty years, something to fight and a reason to drag himself out of his bunk in the mornings.
And then Bill jumped away, and Tigh wasn't with him.
He isn't looking for a job; isn't looking for much of anything, besides another drink, but Mal buys the next round so when he says, you know how to fly a Firefly? Tigh nods again, and they leave the bar together.
"All right, who's in?"
Jayne's got the pool started already.
Inara spares a glance down into the galley as she picks up her bags. It's been nearly two months, and this is the sixth new pilot Mal's brought on board. After the second nearly clipped a satellite dish over Persephone, two weeks in, Jayne started taking bets on how long they'd last.
Two weeks is the longest anyone's stayed, so far. It ain't an easy job, nor a safe one, Mal says, and not many who'd choose it have Wash's skill.
Simon is chewing thoughtfully on his lip. "One week," he says, tossing a bag of coins into the center of the table.
"Aww, have a little faith." Kaylee leans into him, bumps his shoulder in affectionate exasperation. "Three. Give the man a chance."
Inara had barely met the new pilot, but she's known the type before. Silent and obviously hung-over, but he handles the controls like he's used to getting the job done in spite of it. A spacer, a veteran and probably an officer, if she knows how to read him. Not Alliance - his accent's wrong - though she wouldn't have held that against him. She has known veterans from both sides, and the wounds can run just as deep.
And she knows he's another one who won't last, who won't be able to crawl out of the bottle long enough to do the job, but Mal knows what drives him and knows too many others like him not to offer him the chance to try.
And, at the same time, to get Inara off his back temporarily without actually finding a replacement for Wash.
Except there is no replacement for Wash, and they all know it.
"He doesn't belong here." River shakes her head, twirling a strand of hair around one finger.
Inara has a class-A interplanetary pilot's license; it had been a required part of her training, and she keeps it updated regularly. With Wash gone, she is the only one on board Serenity who does.
"You gonna put money on that, girl?" Jayne, impatient.
River can fly, she'd insisted.
River can make the ship dance a polka, Mal said, and he was right. River can fly better than Inara; she's never seen anyone pick up the basics so fast. But I need someone with a license to land her legally, and that girl's picture's up on wanted posters from here to Miranda.
And so it had been settled - she is here to give them respectability, after all. Only until we find someone qualified, they'd agreed. Two months, six pilots, and Inara's beginning to suspect Mal isn't trying very hard.
She'll never say so, not in front of Kaylee, but it's a relief to sit in her shuttle, to feel the little craft responding to her lightest touch. Kaylee had been so excited for her - you get to fly Serenity! Ignoring, or pretending to ignore the tension crackling in the air whenever she and Mal were in the cockpit together.
She has nothing against the ship. But she has only seen two clients in the last month, and she has a backlog of unanswered messages on her comm. She is a professional, and she will not make commitments she doesn't know if she can keep. She can't do two jobs at once, and flying Serenity means she can't entertain clients.
She has a feeling that doesn't bother Mal too much.
It's not a nine-to-five gig, he had said. This deal goes south, I need you ready to take off before they burn my gorram ship. But every job is like that - no margin for error, no assurances they won't need a fast getaway, climbing too fast with bullets pinging off the hull.
I have a career, Mal, and only years of training stopped her from slapping him for the look on his face. A legal, registered career.
So, you're too fine and fancy to work for a thief? And she'd walked away, before either of them said too much. This argument long ago stopped being about her or her job and became something else, became about neither of them being willing to back down for anyone. He should understand better than he does. They had a business arrangement, and it had worked well for them - as well as such things can. As a Companion, she is an independent contractor, choosing her own clients and her own schedule. As Serenity's pilot, she takes orders from Mal.
They both should have known that would never work out.
Tigh has worked tramp freighters before, but the last Firefly was newer. This one's in good repair - he knows a ship that's loved when he sees her - but she's a different model, and she'll take some getting used to. It's been nearly a month since his last job, and what little money that got him is nearly used up.
The screens flicker as he starts the pre-flight check, looking out at the bustling spaceport and ignoring the pounding in his head.
"They won't stop coming."
He gives River a glare, didn't see her come in, and she meets it with those oddly calm eyes.
He knew, when the first war ended, that it wasn't over. He knew it wasn't over when they stopped running, as the ships emptied and the tents went up and the CAP patrols thinned until they were barely a joke anymore. The Cylons won't ever stop coming, and he expects wherever he is, they'll find him here, too.
Some nights, he looks forward to it.
The girl sits in the copilot's seat, bare feet swinging back and forth. "Marching in step and they all look the same. Eyes like stones. They're not human, are they? They can't be."
He shakes his head, concentrating on the readouts in front of him.
"You shouldn't be here."
He doesn't need her to tell him that. Bill did what he had to do, and Galactica would have been destroyed if he'd stayed, but some nights he doesn't know if he'll ever forgive Bill for convincing him to leave the ship days before the Cylons came.
The thrusters fire, and angling into the pale sky he feels alive, awake, in a way he hasn't since his last job landed him on this rock. A new job, and he's back in the sky, at least. The stars are still unfamiliar, but something about being in space again tells him he'll find his way back.
Because the war's not over, and it never will be. And he's tired of waiting for the Cylons to get here.