Timeloop Thread #1

[knowthyexits]

Out of all the things she's ever expected of her life, being torn away from a surgical table and brought to an Island isn't one of them. Another thing she doesn't expect is to close her eyes in sleep one day and wake up in a familiar alleyway with a gun in her hands and John being held hostage.

It all goes the same, it all progresses exactly the same. Derek is there and the child is whimpering and then the man pretending to be Sarkissian is shot and John is in her arms. It's different, though, it's different because she hasn't seen John in too long and she remembers the last time they were separated this long.

She won't let go, she refuses, even when out of the corner of her eye she sees faces that, by all rights, shouldn't be there. "John," she says, holding him closer than before. "John, I love you," she says like it's a command, like he needs to respond. "Are you okay?"

Comments

[rewarded-by-god.livejournal.com]

"No, I suppose you didn't," he conceded, watching her with open wariness. It felt a bit like meeting a stranger with the face of an old friend. Though, in reality, he supposed they'd never known each other that well.

[knowthyexits]

She feels safer with a weapon, though she's not entirely sure she feels right letting him stay at the other end of the gun. She's taken from this reverie by a familiar voice. "Sarah?" calls Derek, sharp and brusque and so impatient, so very impatient and she's missed him. "What's the holdup?"

"Nothing," is all she says, curtly. "I'm coming." She eyes Gaius up and down, not sure what she's meant to do with him. "How resourceful are you?"

[rewarded-by-god.livejournal.com]

"I'm a scientist. I'm not a frakking... soldier. I have quite a bit of experience in not getting myself shot, and if it comes down to it, I have a general knowledge of firearms. Enough not to shoot off my own foot. Does that answer your question?" he asked, a thread of exasperation tinging his voice. Was he resourceful? Gaius Baltar was a rat in the bowels of a ship. He survived, through the harshest of conditions, through pure luck and a willingness to throw all integrity out the window.

[knowthyexits]

"Right now, there are two threats hunting us," she says, already moving out of the alley and tucking her gun away as she tries to think about what they can do to avoid history repeating, but the safehouse is gone and the house is the best place to go. Maybe anticipating Sarkissian will make it different. "There's a very bad man and then there are...other things," she adds after a hesitant pause, knowing she can't say 'the machines' without sounding insane.

[rewarded-by-god.livejournal.com]

"Well, now that you've gone and explained it all as if I were a five year old, the whole situation makes perfect sense," he said, bitingly cheerful and following along behind her with a barely hidden roll of his eyes. He understood the gravity of the situation, of course, but it wasn't beyond him to be a bit immature when the occasion called for it.

A very bad man, indeed.

[knowthyexits]

Sarah's irritation and her panic were edging out her calm and she's ready to bite out words at him. "What do you want me to say?" she demands, easing right into his personal space, her body language as threatening as she can make it.