Now you're just somebody that I used to know.

[chiron_survivor]

Adia is sitting at a computer terminal in the Plaza with a pint of cookie dough ice cream and a carton of boxed wine, watching cute animal videos online and occasionally wiping at her red-rimmed eyes with the back of her hand.

It's every bad break-up cliché, but Adia does not care. After recently experiencing the (second) worst day of life, she needs a break. And unfortunately, the only place she can get that is the Nexus.

She clicks on a thumbnail of a hamster eating a tiny burrito and takes a swig of wine while it loads. "How do you get over someone," she asks the Nexus unhappily, "When they've clearly gotten over you?"

Comments

[h_hollister]

"...You've got a pretty good start," Hips says, mouth puckered in sympathy. "I also find blowing things up is incredibly cathartic. Renting a sports car? Going on Tinder and swiping right on everybody? Watching The Notebook until your tear ducts atrophy?"

[chiron_survivor]

Adia only knows what two of those four suggestions are, but she appreciates the reply. Also, if she were sober, she'd be a heck of a lot more intimidated by Hippolyta and her beauty, but as it is, she just shakes her head. "I guess if I joined the Resistance, I could blow up a few things..." She laughs emptily and wipes at her eyes again. "No, I think it's best if I stay here for a little while. There's no ice cream on New Caprica, and all the good alcohol is gone."

[h_hollister]

Girl, no. Future space babes have to stick together. Don't be intimidated, Hips is a scotch-soaked marshmallow.

"There's a shooting range over yonder," she suggests, jerking her chin in its general direction. "I can loan you my bazookoid for a bit if you like. As for alcohol, I can get you something so much better than two buck Chuck. Heartbreak deserves at least tequila."

[chiron_survivor]

It's easy to be intimidated when you're self-conscious about your dirty clothes and your hair that hasn't had a good wash in at least a week. But a couple glasses deep into the boxed wine and she's forgotten to give a frak about her appearance.

She is not drunk enough, however, to think that shooting a... a big gun, presumably... is a good idea. "I don't like guns," she says, almost apologetically. "I mean, I wouldn't even know what to do..." She perks up a bit at the mention of tequila. "Really? This stuff is okay." It beats the bootlegged crap that could double as paint thinner on her world.

[h_hollister]

"Fair enough. Although a bazookoid is less like a gun, and more like a mining laser that's fallen in with a bad crowd. Hold that thought."

As always, Hips ducks away for a second, and returns with a bottle. (See a theme here, Nexus?) It's filled with a lovely sort of amber liquid guaranteed to destroy brain cells.

"Here we go. I insist on a shot for every month you were together. That'll help."

[chiron_survivor]

A mining laser, eh? Adia should probably stick with the spoon she's currently digging into her ice cream.

Wow, that was fast. It reminds Adia of an old Nexus friend who could pull bottles of hypervodka out of couch cushions. She looks at the tequila, then up at Hippolyta with big doe eyes.

"What counts?" she asks softly. "The three months we were best friends, or the one week we actually dated?"

[h_hollister]

"...Oh, smeg."

Hips would classify this as above her pay grade, but this poor girl needs help and a distraction. And perhaps some seriously tough love.

"Okay. I'm gonna be blunt with you. Look at your life. Look at your choices. One week of dating isn't worth the whole ice cream and smeggy movies routine. Not even if you wanted him from the moment your eyes met. You didn't love him. You had a crush on him. You were in lust with him. Love is something that..."

She stops, frowns, and pours herself a shot which she promptly knocks back, before putting the bottle down within Adia's reach.

"Love is the moment when you know that you'd put somebody else's happiness before your own. And if that feeling is one-sided, it's not love. If he bailed on you, it's not love. Love is the result of years of communication, months of hard work, and the commitment to something extraordinary. Something forever. If he said you were his best friend and dumped you after a week? There was no love there. There was just bullshit."

[chiron_survivor]

Hippolyta's words sting. Not as badly as her recent rejection, but enough that Adia seems to shrink into herself, her eyes filling with tears. It's not because Hips is out of line for what she says -- she doesn't know the whole story, and she's not being unkind. No, it's because it makes Adia doubt her own feelings. What if everything she felt was an illusion, built up in her mind?

What if what Caspar had never cared about her to begin with?

She swallows hard and pours herself a shot of tequila, but she doesn't touch it. Not yet. "We're on opposite sides of a war," she explains quietly. "He was a sleeper agent. He thought he was human, but he... wasn't. So he killed himself. In front of me. Rather than be captured. But... what I didn't know then was that his kind can download their consciousness into a new body. A clone. So... so when the Cylons showed up on New Caprica, I thought... maybe..."

Her mouth twists and she shivers a little, but not from the cold. "I'd never been so close to one of his model before. And I was so sure it was him. I wanted to know if he was okay. If he --" She swallows again and squeezes her eyes shut. Stupid, stupid, stupid. "You're right. I shouldn't be drinking over him. I should be drinking for my family, my friends. All the people who died when the Cylons invaded. But there's not enough alcohol in the multiverse for that."

[h_hollister]

"He did what?"

The 'tough love' is instantly dropped for horrified...uh. Horror. Because holy smeg, there was wrong, and then there was that.

"Okay. Girl. Consider this your intervention. I've been where you are. And it goes nowhere. I also know the more I tell you it's not love, the more you'll push back. So. Let me put it to you this way. If he killed himself in front of you, can you honestly look at yourself in the mirror and say 'He did that for my happiness?' Because, pro-tip. He didn't. You are stuck in some seriously abusive smeg. Whatever's going on politics-wise...he's not your best friend. Trust me."

[chiron_survivor]

Adia looks up at her and blinks. It's honestly not something she considered. "You think he did it to hurt me?" And yes, Hips totally called it, she's already shaking her head in denial. "He didn't... I wasn't supposed to be there when it happened. Of... of course he didn't do it for my happiness. He did it because the military was about to board our ship and he was trapped."

The shot of tequila suddenly doesn't look very appealing. She pushes it away, suddenly queasy. "I think I'm... I'm all set on that. Thanks anyway."

[h_hollister]

Smeg, smeg.

"Again. If he offed himself in front of you...that's pretty much the dictionary definition of sociopath. Don't fall in love with a sociopath. I did, and I'm still dealing with it. I have two kids because I fell in love with a sociopath. I have to give my entire soul to my children because I let a sociopathic man dictate my life. I loved my late husband...and then I realized how utterly wrong I was. Get yourself free before you have children!"

[chiron_survivor]

Adia blinks again. "I'm sorry," she says, forgetting her own grief for a little while. Her relationship with Caspar was a litany of could-have-beens, but at least she never experienced anything worse than rejection. "That's... I can't even imagine. I'm sorry."

She doesn't reach for the tequila, or her own cruddy wine. Instead, she tentatively pats Hippolyta's hand, if the other woman will let her. "Please don't worry about me. I... I'm not going to see him again. I know that now." She's not going to touch on the subject of children. Cylons and humans can't interbreed. "I'll be okay."

[h_hollister]

"No no, don't be sorry. I love my kids, I do. But if I knew then what I know now..."

She trails off, lets out a sigh. Lets Adia pat her hand, which she smiles at. Sweet girl. Poor girl.

"If I knew then what I know now, I never would have married the smegger. I would have run screaming in the opposite direction. I would have run screaming from all the men I shagged, out of desperation and...and loneliness. Self-esteem ain't easy to come by. But it can be grabbed. Grab yourself some, ASAP."

[chiron_survivor]

"What are they like? Your kids." Parents love talking about their children, right? It seems like a safer topic than sociopathic ex-husbands.

Adia listens silently to the other woman's advice. She could probably use a healthy dose of self-esteem. Alcohol builds confidence in some, but she doesn't seem any better for it. "I haven't dated much," she admits. "But I stayed friends with my exes. Social network friends, anyway. This is the first time..." She sighs and starts over. "Even when things didn't work out, we stayed on good terms. They were decent guys. Just not right for me."

It seems like a lifetime ago, when her biggest concerns were getting her degree and deciding which path for her career to take. "After the war started, I checked the list of all known survivors. It's not a complete list, obviously, no census is perfect, but... no one I knew survived."

She takes the shot, finally, in a few swallows instead of all at once. In honor of the ones who deserved it.