Doubt

All the memories of your life prove it. Would a Cylon still remember your first temple visit as a member of the congregation, when the priestess sprinkled your head with holy water? Would a Cylon remember Aunt Sarah's best rice recipe?

You are not a Cylon. You can sit in the bar while Tigh fiddles with that idiotic radio and hear music -- no one else seems to hear it, but maybe they know something you don't, maybe they know about a new station somewhere in the fleet that plays the same hokey song over and over. That song sounds like it's played on tin instruments through a hangar deck, weird echoes and all, but if it's the only song someone could find, wouldn't they keep playing it? Just to remind us of what was.

You know Callie's waiting for you with Nicky, but the bar's full of people, and you need the distraction. It's been days you've felt like you're going to leap out of your own skin. Like a seed about to break through its hull. Heavy with potential. It's not an itch, precisely, but it's something strong and weighty you can't ignore. It's nothing you've experienced before.

In the fleeting moments before rolling out of bed in the morning, you can vaguely remember dreams. You were never on a Cylon ship of any kind, other than the raider Starbuck had; the clean open spaces, the tanks of gelatinous liquid, the centurions' feet hammering down the corridors, are not what you would have imagined Cylon ships to have, yet they're what lingers and you know that you know that you know -- Cylon.

The only images that stick are the ones with familiar faces in them. Sharon, rising naked and wet from one of the tanks. In the dream you are watching from overhead, a balcony, something high up, and the Sharon is helped by other Sharons, then stands on her own. And turns, tipping her head back, smiling up at you.

You are not a Cylon.

You were always angry at the toasters, at Sharon, and you approved of Callie's bold move, shooting the toaster responsible for the Old Man's near-assassination. Anger boiled in you for weeks after the attacks on the colonies. Sometimes it was the only thing propping you up in the hangar bays, toiling to throw together a Viper from old parts. You're angry now, thinking about it.

You want to yell at Tigh to shut the damn radio off.

You still think Helo's crazy. Having a baby with a toaster -- Anger rises. Nicky. He's --

You are NOT a Cylon.

Stumbling out of the bar, you think desperately that Cylons don't get this drunk, don't reel against the walls for their balance, don't bother with such petty human weaknesses.

 Somewhere in your gut, you're angry on Callie's behalf. If she knew it would kill her. So you're not a Cylon, not in a million years, and this ongoing doubt has to end, because you're going home to the baby you love and the woman you married because of the fire in her, the fire that kept her going through the Occupation, and damn it, she's not going to have to suffer the humiliation and pain. She just won't.

The music is coming through the wall. No way was the radio that loud. You march away down corridors toward home, aware of how you lurch with every step, and you want the anger to burn away the haze of alcohol before you get there, and the haze of doubt along with it. Drunk and hearing things. That's all. Because you're not a Cylon.