Chapter Text
Year 40 after the Cylon invasion
At 37 years of age, Bill Adama considers himself old and out of order. This may be somewhat of an exaggeration, but in absolute terms, he’s closer to the end of his life than the beginning. Life expectancy in the Colonies has plummeted in the last 40 years, and it doesn’t take a genius to understand why. That coincided with Daniel Graystone’s coup, taking control of the nation with his Cylons at his side. And three years later, the start of the Hunger Games to keep the Colonies in line. Kids are sacrificed every year, and for those who make it past their teens, it’s just grim from then.
On Bill’s first birthday, the first Hunger Games were announced as a punishment for the failed rebellion. Bill’s grandfather said, half jokingly, that maybe the baby was bad luck.
The man never lived long enough to see how right he was. To see Bill fighting for his life in an arena at 16 years old; living through events that will haunt him until the last time he closes his eyes. To see him spending the next 20 years mentoring other kids, knowing full well they'll be dead within a week.
Every year, they take him out of his colony to parade in front of President Graystone and pretend like anything he tells the tributes will save their lives. Those kids have got virtually no chance of winning. He's been the only victor of this colony since the games started; part of the reason why was his strategy, but part of it was also just dumb luck. He’s under no illusion of being special.
He tried to live a normal life after his Games, got married, even had two kids that he stayed up at night worrying about. But every year, he’s had to attend more children’s funerals, and it never stops. He’s not forced to attend the funerals , only the training and death, but that’s the least he can do. No one wants to see him there, he’s aware of that, so he stands at the back of the crowd, quietly paying respects to the kids he sent to be killed. He does his best to keep his distance year after year, can’t bear to be close to them.
Except this year. The red-headed, firebrand of a 17-year-old girl caught his attention as soon as they sat down in the train. Frak them all, she said, lifting her chin, even though her eyes were still red from the goodbye to her family. I’ll give them a show .
She gave them a show, and it was all for nothing. Today, Bill is standing very still in the unbearable heat, eyes trained on the coffins marked with the blocky Caprican “C” that were sent back after the games. The tributes’ names are engraved on the lid, in case the bodies are too disfigured for the families to recognise them, or the remains insufficient. Bill can’t read the names from where he is, all the way at the back, but he doesn’t need to. He knows their names. He remembers all of their names.
“Lyle Rivera, Cheryl Roslin,” says Elosha, the priestess officiating the funeral, "We return your bodies to the universe, from which the Lords of Kobol brought you to us. Lords of Kobol, we pray that you will look after our children. May the gods’ eternal light guide their paths to the sacred shore."
At the front of the crowd stand the people Bill is avoiding, Lyle’s parents and Cheryl’s sister. Laura Roslin is almost as still as he is, in contrast to Lyle’s parents, whose shoulders keep shaking with sobs. She is standing alone, with no one to comfort her. Her parents dead, her sisters gone. Bill has the incredibly stupid urge to go stand next to her and offer his support, but he thankfully holds himself back. She hates him. And to be perfectly honest, he's not too fond of her either. He might be a Victor, but he's only playing into the game as much as he's forced to. On the other hand, she's warming the Mayor's bed. Still, she didn't deserve to lose both her sisters to those games.
“We commit their bodies to the ground, secure in the knowledge that we will be reunited in a better world to come,” Elosha concludes. “So say we all.”
The crowd responds as one, a lot more people than other years. Some of those people, Bill doesn't even know. He hasn't mingled with the rest of the tribe in a number of years, staying in the Victors’ quarter on his own. Beside Carolanne, that is, when she was still alive. People tend to mistrust Victors, resent them, hold them responsible. They’re not entirely wrong: every year, Bill travels to Caprica with two of the colony's children and exchanges them for two coffins. He, too, would hate himself that he let them die. He does. It’s better for everyone that he doesn’t mingle.
Cheryl joins her other sister in the ground, victim of the same fate. Bill listens to more prayers that follow, offerings to the Gods that he knows they don’t care about, if they even exist. If they do exist, they clearly have no interest in humanity, but in these times, faith is the only thing some people are able to cling to.
What is happening has nothing to do with the Gods. It all came out of a megalomaniac who created killer robots, and used them to take control of the Twelve Colonies. Now his word is law, and his Caprican fanatics follow his every whim, while the rest of the colonies are brought to order by way of metal machines and cruel games.
People trickle out of the cemetery as Bill tries to talk himself into walking away too, leaving behind yet another year of those games. He’s not sure what compels him to walk forward instead. He’s pulled towards the woman who doesn’t want to see him. He craves to tell her what really happened, what he helped her sister accomplish that didn’t make it on TV, how her 17-year-old sister had more balls than he does.
When Laura turns around, her hair swaying along her shoulders, Bill remembers their last meaningful interaction four years ago. At the funeral of Sandra, the other sister he had to mentor to her death. They didn’t exchange any words then. He only looked at her, and she slapped him across the face. Part of him hopes she does it again.
“I’m sorry,” he tells her now. “She fought-”
Laura doesn’t slap him this time, but her expression shows how much she wants to. Her green eyes darken with anger. “Don’t talk to me,” she interrupts him, her voice cold as an ice cube sliding inside his shirt. Her body is tense as a bow ready to shoot, arms crossed in front of her and when her gaze crosses his, he can see her eyes are dry.
“I wanted to offer my condolences,” he tries again.
She scowls, pushes her hair behind her shoulder, one auburn strand flying back in the wind instead. “Spare me your empty words, Victor of the Hunger Games .” She says those words, the title that crushes him, like they’re acid in her mouth, burning her tongue.
Anger flares up in Bill’s chest. “You have no idea what that means.”
An almost imperceptible lift of her left eyebrow precedes her words. “It means you killed my sister.”
Bill grits his teeth. She doesn't even know the half of it, but telling her would be meaningless. She might even accuse him of lying, trying to save face, since there is almost no sign of Cheryl’s actions in the Games. Cheryl, that fierce teenage girl, didn't want to go down without a fight and as her mentor, as someone who saw her sister slaughtered before her, Bill couldn't not help her. For all the good that did, because none of it ever aired on TV. The outcome is on his shoulders only now. Cheryl is dead. The Head Gamemaker, dead also. Bill's accomplice in the Graystone administration, dead. But Bill is still alive. He guesses they can't kill the colony's sole victor without raising questions, but he knows he'll pay for it.
In Laura’s eyes, he reads that she’d love to make him pay, too. If she had a knife in her hand now, he’s not sure that she wouldn’t drive it in his stomach the way that boy from the 5th colony did to Sandra.
It’s wild to think that they grew up in parallel streets. He remembers being a child and picking flowers together, helping her to read as he was a few years older. Giving her a book that he managed to get his hands on. His father was furious that he lost that book, but the smile on her face was worth it. There's been nothing between them for a very long time, not even a word of greeting if they have the misfortune of walking past each other, not since he took away her family.
She turns away from him now, and he goes the other way.
The next day, as Bill walks by the cemetery, he notices her singing quietly to the grave, that song they traditionally sing at funerals. In her voice, he hears the tears she kept to herself yesterday. She just didn’t want anyone else to witness it, and he managed to take even that away from her.