number_eight | 183 - Tell me a secret.

I could have broken free of their grasp and done something. Maybe not gotten away, but done something when those men had come into my cell and started asking me questions. I'm stronger than them, after all. The thing is, I'd never had to worry about an "attack" (as Doc Cottle put it) before. I'd lived with the Cylons and granted, I had some of Boomer's memories so I knew what went on in the boys' club. I think any woman in the military knows.

The secret, though, isn't that I could have done something about it besides asking "why" or yelling "no" or begging them to stop. The secret is that I couldn't.

Maybe my fellow crewmembers won't understand this feeling unless it has happened to them or, more likely, unless you're a woman. The bruises and scars on my wrists are gone now. Hera survived, somehow. And thank God that Helo and Chief got there in time to… well, they didn't stop it. They only stopped it from continuing, which was bad enough.

I'm not a helpless female, but in that position? With my pants around my legs and that man behind me, shoving me down on my cot… with his greasy hands on my body whispering about all the frakking things he was going to do to me, and then let others do to me once he was done… let's just say it, okay?

Once he was done raping me.

I think that's the first time I've actually used that word.

Again, it's all part of the secret. You never can be prepared for something like that, no matter how much you've trained, no matter how strong you are… some slimy motherfrakker can come along and take it away from you. He shoved himself inside me. He hurt not only my body, but my spirit. I don't remember much, honestly, because all I recall is huddling in a corner, crying and holding onto a blanket as the marines came in to arrest Helo and Chief.

It angers me now that I had to be saved. I'm stronger than this. I should have been able to do something about it. I should… God, I'm a toaster, which was half the reason he did it to me anyway! You know if it had been a male Cylon, then there would have been torture, but that would be it. Female Cylons, though? No, we get it worse. We get torture of a different sort, we get frakking raped, and not too many seem to care.

It's all part of the secret.

Muse : Sharon "Athena" Agathon
Fandom : Misc. TV/"Battlestar Galactica"
Word Count : 431
OOC Note : Much of this is the mun's feelings on the muse at this point and isn't entirely canon.