Title: Boone's Choice

Author/pseudonym: Caffre

Fandom: Earth: Final Conflict

Pairing: None

Rating: PG

Status: New

Archive: Yes to list archives

Disclaimers: Characters belong to others. Realistically, this is all you're going to get me to admit to.

Notes: Being relatively new to E: FC I was highly impressed with Sandoval's Run and wondered what Boone would have wanted if the position had been reversed. This isn't however what this story is about, but rather what Boone feels about the choice he made for Sandoval.

Beta-ing thanks to Rachelle Ryan.

Warning: Spoilers for Sandoval's Run

Summary: Boone reflects on a choice he's made.

**Boone's Choice**
by Caffre

"Are you ok?"

Lili Marquette looked over from her position in the driver's seat of her car, her expression full of concern for her friend.

Boone just smiled at her. "Yeah, I'm fine. Go on home and I'll see you tomorrow."

She reflected his smile right back at him, if only briefly.

"You sure?"

He sighed. "Yes. Go. Now."

This time the smile remained on her face. "Well, if you insist..."

"I insist..."

"See you tomorrow in the office?"

"All right. Bye Lili."

He stood on the kerb, waiting until her car smoothly rounded the corner at the end of the block before turning and heading up the path to his front door.

He reached out to put his key in the lock, suddenly thinking of Kate, his CVI throwing up a memory right in front of him, so real and vivid he couldn't help but smile.

* * * * *

"What would you like most?"

He was lying beside her in bed, the cool sheets against his skin ruffled from a mornings bout of love making that had left them both tired and happy.

"Oh, like I have a choice you mean?"

She smiled, Boone not seeing it as he lay in the crook of her arm.

"Well, you don't. Doesn't mean a serious amount of wishful thinking can't come into it though. So? Come on? Tell me?"

Boone sighed theatrically. "If you must know..."

Kate cut him off, just as dramatically. "Oh, I must! I must!"

"I always wanted a daughter first." He turned to look at her, slightly worried now. "Is that wrong of me?"

She gently ran her hand over his head, smoothing down his damp hair. "No, it's not wrong. Although I am surprised. I always pictured you wanting a son first. You know, doing the father-son thing with him, taking him to ball games, that kinda thing."

"You're getting awfully sexist in your old age Kate, you know that? I'd do those things with a girl. It's just..."

She urged him on a little. "Just what?"

He smiled against her. "I want to...to see her grow up as beautiful and as kind hearted as her mother ...to see her come down the stairs on her prom night in the most beautiful dress, harass her boyfriend, a lot...give her away on her wedding day."

"William, you old romantic you..." She leaned down and pressed a kiss to his head. "I love you so much."

He turned to look at her. "I love you to." He put a hand on her stomach. "It's going to happen Kate. I can feel it."

* * * * *

The image changed. Doors, Lili, Belman and Eddy were standing around him, and he could feel the weight of the decision he was making sitting on him.

"If I become a full implant, I want your word! You kill me."

He gasped as he came back to reality. He had wanted to think of Kate and had thought of a moment in time that concerned their future together. The other was a grim reminder of the future he had stolen from someone else.

He unlocked the front door, heading in and going straight to the orchids sitting on the table just in though the living room. Kate's flowers. He always watered them as soon as he got in, thinking of them as a kind of reminder as to what he was truly working for.

Of course, he knew what he was doing. Ignoring the problem. His mother had always said he didn't do it often, but when he did, you knew he was in trouble.

Trying not to think about it was only making it worse, so instead he headed for the bottle of whiskey he had in the kitchen.

He poured himself a large one, knowing full well it wouldn't affect him, but wanting to feel the burning sensation as it slid down his throat. He might not be able to get drunk, but he certainly felt like trying.

He went back into the living room, falling heavily into the seat.

"You should have let him die."

There. It was out. He had spouted humanities cause because humanity was all he had left, the only reason he felt like fighting this war since Kate had died. He was doing it for his and Kate's unborn children. Sure, Kate was dead and they would never have those children they had planned, but others would. Other people where having children as he was sitting here trying to drown his
sorrows. And it was for them, for their future that he kept going.

So it was for that reason he had fought for Sandoval, had stood up to Door's to gain him his life back. They couldn't let him die, that would just make them as bad as the Taelons.

He shuddered at an errant thought. What if Kate had persuaded him to join with the Companions as a proper Protector? Would he have been as interesting to the Resistance as he was? As an angry husband bent on finding his wife's killer he'd been the perfect recruit. After all, Door's hadn't said no when he stated that on he would be the one to track down Kate's killer, yet once he had been implanted it was out of the question. It hadn't stopped him though, but he seriously doubted they would have been so keen if he hadn't suspected the Taelons of murdering her in the first place.

As sick as it was, Sandoval had at least spared him that; stopping him from turning on her just as Sandoval had turned on Dee Dee.

And what had he done? The man had wanted to die a free man in his wife's arms, and Boone had taken that away from him. Had espoused humanities duty to save life when it could, despite the fact that he too would want to die if he became a full implant.

And not only that! Oh no! Not only had he had Sandoval re-implanted, it had also presented him with the perfect opportunity to clear away all those nasty suspicions that he knew the Agent had been having about the Commander of Interspecies Relations and Security. He didn't need any Taelon implant to recall the scream of anguish Sandoval had released when Boone had told him he'd had his wife killed. The pain of that sound would haunt him till the day he died.

It was what he would have wanted. Boone knew without a doubt that the day his CVI gave out, he would rather be dead that have a fully functioning one put inside his head. And yet he had allowed himself to ensure Sandoval's continued subjugation to the Taelons when he had wanted no such thing.

He had the feeling he would have liked Ronald Sandoval without his implant. For that brief moment in the warehouse together, the man had displayed nothing but contempt and disgust for what the Taelons had made him do. The pain and regret of it was written all over his face and Boone knew he would have been more welcoming of his death if it weren't for his concern over Dee Dee. Plus, he had found Sandoval's wife to be so much like Kate it was scary. She would have done anything for her husband, even seeing him live under Taelon control despite everything he, and they, had done to her.

Would Kate have been as lucky?

He took another burning drink, thinking of his real reasoning behind his decision. Had he done it out of revenge? He thought he had forgiven the man for the death of his wife, after all, it hadn't really been him killing her, but the motivational imperative the CVI gave him to serve the Companions.

But what if he hadn't? What if on some subconscious level he had wanted to punish the man buried under his CVI for taking it in the first place?

It was this thought that was killing him. Rationally he knew Sandoval wasn't really to blame, but that hadn't stopped it hurting every single damn day he saw him. The pain was real enough, so how could there not be doubt to his actions? He finished the drink, not getting up to take anymore, but instead just sitting there, staring into space.

Sandoval had wanted to die, and Boone had saved him. Only Boone had gained in the exchange. Sandoval was alive, but not his own master. For a brief moment he had been and all he had thought of was his wife and his love for her.

And Boone had stolen that from him. Had taken the death away that would have freed him and her both. He could only hope that some day, some good would come out of this. But right now he could only prey that he wasn't as petty, and as vindictive as he thought himself to be. That, despite his reengineered CVI he was still the man he had been before his world had fallen apart. That he was still someone that Kate would have still loved.

The End