[bsg fic] you in the air

[elly427]

Title: you in the air
Author: elly427
Summary: She's gotten good at making the hard choices. Takes place post-Kobol's Last Gleaming. AU.
Classifications: PG-ish. Fade-to-back nudity. Spoilers for the second season. Kara/Lee and angst.
Disclaimer: Still not mine.
Author's Notes: This was started a long, long time ago, was then directed by the prompt I got for freeversefic and then took another three months. Speedy I am not. Thanks to anr and sjshipper for the read-through and beta. New to this fandom, so comments are more than welcomed. This is the first fic I've really worked at in a year.

For K, because she is far away and I miss her dearly.



[][][]

The pact we made to read our farewells exactly
at two in the afternoon with you in the air
holds me like a heavy winter coat.

[][][][ [ [] ] ][][][]


Kara can't wait to leave Caprica.

Kara wouldn't say that their luck is holding exactly; at this point she's not sure she believes in luck. Regardless, the cylons seem to have lost their trail and the airstrip is mostly deserted. She and Helo wait as long as they can before clearing out the last of the cylon centurions and then make a dash for the largest craft on the runway.

A bullet to the side of the - head? cockpit? brain? - and the larger raider doesn't even shudder when Kara cuts a hole in its belly and starts yanking out guts. Helo stands guard and Kara understands, knows she wouldn't want to see the organics that make the cylons seem so life-like if she were him.

It doesn't take long before she's cleared out what she thinks are non-essentials. She and Tyrol spent hours diagramming every part of the other raider and she's probably as familiar with the internal systems as she's going to get.

She shoves the organs and sludge to the left and ducks out under the right side, tells Helo to follow her in and then takes one last breath of Caprican air and slides herself into the ship.

She's orienting herself to the piloting controls when Helo slides in. It's a tight fit but they'll manage. Karl takes a second to secure the hatch she'd so carefully cut and Kara thinks they both hold their breath as the cut airway fills the compartment with breathable, if stinky, air.

She and Helo have spent hours around camp fires, drawing in the sand and on a few precious scraps of paper and she knows he knows what to do.

[][][]

Helo always was one hell of an ECO, so Kara's not surprised he finds a subspace message being sent out from the fleet.

She's too busy flying and too crammed into the opposite end of the raider to see the expression on his face, but she feels the way his body, squished in next to hers, stiffens just a little.

"What?" she snaps, tries adjusting the throttle just a little, over does it, eases off.

Helo hums a little and she shifts just far enough onto her side to see him, head back and eyes closes, up to his elbows in Raider guts.

"Helo." She kicks him a little with his foot and his eyes open but it takes a second to clear them.

"I've got something. Just had to know how to look." His voice is a little smug, glad to be back doing what he does best.

"Something?" she asks.

"It's . . . a little weird. The tone was a little off." She raises an eyebrow. "Just didn't sound like the fleet, that's all. But it's human."

Kara wants to trust Helo badly. Gods, she wants to, but he's different, just a little cracked and he makes her nervous more often than not. She wants him back on Galactica and under guard and not watching her back. But right now he's all she's got so she shakes her head and trusts him, tweaks the slippery thing in her right hand and alters their course towards Helo's coordinates.

[][][]

Helo's learned a fair amount on Caprica, and he assures her he's got something akin to wireless working. Still. They're a lot closer to the fleet than she expects to be when he finally gets a response, and she can't figure out why she hasn't had to dodge vipers yet.

"We're being ordered to head to Colonial One." Kara can all but hear the furrow in Helo's brow.

"What's wrong with the Galactica?" Or the Deuclion, or the Tauron Themisto, or the Alcestis? There's ten ships in the fleet better suited to receiving the raider.

"I don't think this is the Galactica," Helo frowns and concentrates. "Repeat again, over." Helo listens and then shakes his head. "They still want us on the Colonial One."

Kara shakes her head and looks out the view slot and can't see raiders and it occurs to her, as she watches the fleet grow nearer, that she should be able to at least see the Galactica.

She shakes her head and tries to quell the tiny pinch of fear in her stomach and concentrates on maneuvering the raider through the bay doors of Colonial One, barely big enough for them.

[][][]

Landing the Raider is easier than she expected. The hanger of the Colonial One is a hell of a lot smaller than the Galactica and she can't, maybe won't, begin to imagine what happened to the Battlestar that would force her into landing on another ship.

Kara shuts the raider down and Helo pops the make-shift hatch and slides out first. She takes a minute, takes a breath and gives him enough time to clear the hatch before she pushes herself out, feet first.

She's out and she takes a deep breath of non-Cylon scented air, breathes in recycled oxygen and for a moment everything feels right. She uses her less-damaged right arm and rolls to her back, scoots out from under the raider and into the bright light of the hanger bay.

She takes the proffered hand and is on her feet before she realises it's not Helo, realises it's Lee, Lee and she feels just a little tension seep from her shoulders and she's still holding his hand and this, him and her at the end of the world, is still familiar.

Somewhere in the back of her mind she knows he's got to be pissed, no, furious with her for what she did, not only as her friend but as her CAG but she can't stop staring into wide blue eyes that seem to be getting closer and closer and-

Lee's other hand, the one not holding hers, comes up to the back of her neck and suddenly his lips are on hers and he's kissing her and she's kissing him, and her hand moves from her side almost of its own volition as her eyes slide shut and her hand is on his lower back, getting him closer and closer and not close enough as his hand threads through her too-long hair and pulls her head back and to the right so he can slide his tongue into her mouth and steal her breath.

Their clasped hands are still between them and she can feel every finger pressing into her abdomen. She wants to let go, wants to bring her hand up to his head and hold on to the soft, short strands of his hair but when she starts to move her hand his tightens on hers and she can't let go, won't let go this time.

Lee pulls his mouth away and she feels him take a breath, his ribs expanding against her even as he pulls her in closer to his body.

She rests her forehead on his shoulder, and there is so much here that feels familiar. She feels Lee's hand on her face and even the lightest tracing of his fingers along her jaw hurts. She hasn't seen a mirror since she left the Galactica and she pulls away and opens her eyes, watching him as he carefully watches his finger, watches as he traces something slowly and gently and she assumes it must be a bruise.

But. But she doesn't have time to figure what the hell this all means because even as she shivers at the feel of Lee's hand on her throat she hears someone clear his throat and she pulls away from the man in front of her. He does the same and she can feel the way his shoulders go back and his posture is perfected for the man standing not three feet away.

"Mr. President," Lee says, and Kara realises a lot has changed.

[][][]

Zarek has her and Helo taken to separate rooms, cold, gray and after the yellow light of Caprica she's happy to be surrounded by the familiar color of space.

The two men who are sent in to speak to her are both thin and nervous and one almost spills the glass of water he's brought for her and Kara doesn't think it's an act.

Their questions are simple and she knew they would be coming, expected to have to face Tigh or Lee or the Old Man and had prepared appropriately. Lying to these two is no hardship.

But after hours and hours of no sleep and running on an adrenaline high she can't help but let some things slip, so when she stumbles over a story, when it becomes clear she and Helo had at least some human help, the two across from her zero in on it and demand answers and she can almost recognize the desperate edge in his voice as the one on the left questions her.

She sees something flicker in the eyes of the man in front of her and she can't keep eye contact, looks down at the table and shakes her head, angry.

"No. You can't go back. They'd shoot anything but a raider down the minute it completed the jump."

He opens his mouth, like he's going to say something, like he's going to remind her she did it, so she shakes her head and lays her hands flat on the table, knows her body language says she's telling the truth. She's been on the other side of this table.

"The survivors? They're not sane, and it's not pretty down there. Anyone you left behind is gone. Trust me." And there's something in her voice, some steel or some memory or something that combines with her carefully projected posture and her interrogator doesn't exactly relax, but he backs down, lowers his eyes and consults the check list in front of him.

Kara doesn't move her eyes from his as she answers his next question.

[][][]

As smart as she thinks she's been, she's pretty sure she's not fooling Zarek with some of her half-truths. He wants a full briefing, wants to grill her for every detail she can provide about Caprica and the Cylons. She wishes Helo hadn't been taken to another room because it would be so much easier to figure out their story if he were here. Instead she simply stands there as her congenial interrogators are replaced by another set, these men twice her weight and nearly a foot taller.

But as adept as Zarek's second set of interrogators seem to think they are, she's used to this sort of thing and she tells Zarek's men what they want to hear sooner rather than later.

Halfway through breaking her second toe, the intercom crackles to life and Zarek's almost-manic voice fills the room. Her interrogators stop and listen, seem to concentrate on the tinny voice blaring through the room.

"What happened to Roslin?" The bigger one shoots her a look and says "she's dead" so she says "oh" and sags back onto her arms.

[][][]

Kara's nearly whole when they release her, when they decide she's told them everything. She's told them everything she's willing to share with Zarek. They seem to believe her and have someone come in and bandage her foot, wrap it so she can at least support her weight.

She pauses when they let her go. She's been given directions to her quarters, but she sees the smirks on the faces of her captors when they finally release her from her chains.

Kara's never wanted to be predictable, but she's been backed into a corner this time and doesn't know where else to go.

Kara knocks on his office door and Lee's "come" sounds just like his father's, sounds like the beckoning of any colonial officer and that much is a comfort.

He's at his desk, nearly hidden behind stacks of paper, piles of things he's dealing with that she doesn't know or care anything about, but they're not high enough to hide the way he freezes when he finally looks up and sees her.

"Kara." His voice is even and she crosses the room to stand beside him. This decision was made long before the first interrogator’s hand touched her.

"I think-" she moistens her upper lip, watches him stand so she looses her height advantage. "I think we've said enough."

Lee doesn't say another word.

[][][]

Lee's gone when she wakes and that worries her. She doesn't like the fact that she was able to sleep through him dressing and leaving.

Granted, she hasn't slept in a real bed in over a month, has barely slept in a month, but she's still basically in enemy territory at this point so that's not an excuse.

She's still tired and for a second contemplates staying where she is. She's warm and comfortable and that's enough reason in itself to leave these days. She gets up, collects her dirty clothes and shrugs on a tank and pants. She bundles the rest and hopes for clean ones in her quarters, but the way her luck has been holding, there won't be a flight suit in her size.

She exits the room and is surprised to find no guards. Either Lee has more pull than expected, or she is already trusted.

Then she eyes the camera in the hallway and realizes it's neither. She gives security a half-assed salute and continues on her way. She finds her bunk without much trouble and falls into it fully dressed. She reaches down and unties her boots, toes them off over the edge and is asleep as soon as her head hits the pillow.

[][][]

Kara wakes again and finds Helo sitting at the side of her bed.

"What the frak are you doing here?" She sits and is assaulted by freshly sore muscles, muscles that didn't get much of a work out on Caprica.

"The better question is what are you doing here?" Helo lifts an eyebrow and chomps on what smells like mint-flavored gum. "Figured you'd be-"

"Helo." she cuts him off. She won't deal with this right now.

"Okay." He clears his throat. "Played a little triad, found myself out a few things."

[][][]

Helo points Kara in the direction of the showers and promises her fresh clothes by the time she's out. He comes through and if things are a little too big, she'll make due.

The commissary is strangely quiet. People sit and eat in groups but no one seems to be talking. Kara takes a bowl of what they're calling lunch and sits by herself.

The soup is edible but not particularly flavorful and she watches the other people around her. They eat mechanically, spoons lifting up and down in a peculiar sort of concert. No one laughs and the odd smile surfaces only to be quickly stifled.

Kara can't figure it out, doesn't have time to worry, needs to get moving if she's going to be ready.

[][][]

Half way through Zarek's next speech, Kara slips out of her quarters. Two raps on his door and Helo is behind her, a bag of supplies slung over his arm.

Kara heads straight for the Raider and Helo hits a comm station and by the time Lee gets to the hanger bay, Helo's on board and Kara's reaching for one last printout from the Colonial One's computers.

"What are you doing?" Lee's voice is low and steady and she knows without looking that his right hand is twitching, ready to go for the gun she discovered not twenty four hours ago he's got hidden in an ankle holster.

"Going back to my ship-" she has to bite the sir off the end of the sentence. "And back to my post. I've been AWOL long enough."

"Kara-" she's not listening, and she turns towards the Raider.

"Kara-" he starts again and she doesn't have time for this, turns to face him.

"What good am I doing here, Lee? How, exactly, is it helping to have the fleet's best pilot and a new piece of intelligence stuck on a frakking political experiment gone wrong?" She takes a breath and wants to take a step closer to him but being close to him has gotten her into more trouble than not in the last few days so she stands her ground and dares him with a look and the tilt of her chin to cross into her space. "The Galactica needs me, Lee. Frak, she needs you too, and you're too busy being selfish, trying to adhere to some damn code and system that died when the twelve worlds died. I'd bet all those people who died would rather have you out piloting a viper and protecting what's left of humanity instead of here, protecting some antiquated, useless set of ideas."

She doesn't look at him and he doesn't say anything so she crouches and worms her way into the raider. Helo nearly closes the door on her feet but she doesn't say anything, just settles into place and slides her hands and feet into the grooves she's created.

"Go," she says curtly and Helo nods and closes his eyes and grabs something and twists and the hangar bay door slide open and the ship is floating and she maneuvers, back and out and they're in space, speeding away from this half of the fleet and she almost holds her breath until the FTL drive engages and she knows she didn't really escape, knows Lee let her leave.

[][][]

Three jumps and Helo adjusts their route each time they come out of a jump, his hands busy pulling on and rearranging different pieces , and finally the Galactica looms large through the small slit the raider allows for vision. She lets out a groaning sigh and feels Helo relax just the tiniest bit next to her.

"Home," he says, and she can't help but think of what awaits him here.

"For now," she responds and wishes she hadn't. She still can't quite imagine herself giving up on the idea of earth but the old man all but told her it was lie and she thinks her reluctance to give up on the idea is tied closely to her reluctance to give up on him.

Compared to the Colonial One, the entrance to the Galactica's hanger is huge, and she guides the raider in without a mishap. She recognizes the attitude of the Vipers beside her, knows the slight hesitation of the ship to her right and the bullying of the craft to her left, would risk everything and bet Cat and Hot Dog are guiding her in.

The raider touches down lightly and she exhales, feels the tension that never left on the Colonial One slowly seep from her shoulders as the ship is lowered on the lift to the flight deck. A final thunk and the ship is docked, settled, ready for her next flight.

Kara doesn't realize how bad she still must look until she crawls out of the Raider and hears Cally's gasp. A marine escort is ready, waiting, pointing their guns and she holds her hands up, as does Helo.

Tigh's there to greet them, looks them both up and down and turns to the man closest to him, Thomas, turns and says, "Sick bay first," and Kara thinks it's a good thing they're going to be allowed to visit a doctor before they're thrown into hack. She puts weight on her foot and her toes ache and she tries not to think too hard about anything.

[][][]

Kara's not exactly terrified when the commander sends for her, but it seems to take forever to tie her boots, and the short walk through the halls of the Galactica seems to take a lifetime.

The old man has always forgiven her everything but she's not sure he can forgive this, her abandonment of the fleet when it needed her. She's pretty sure his job description says he's not allowed to forgive her. She takes one last look at the halls as she walks through, sure the next time she sees them she'll be on her way to the brig for a long, long stay.

Adama is at his desk and she snaps to attention. He rises and circles her and she wants to run out of his office so badly she doesn't know what to do. Her entire body is sharply stiff, waiting for his reprimand.

He pauses as he stands behind her. She waits and waits and wants something from him, wants a reprimand or for him to start yelling or even a sad proclamation of disappointment.

She gets none of those things and thinks perhaps that is her punishment. The commander goes to the hatch and opens it, lets people in and she knows him better than to think he's letting in the entire crew to see her humiliated.

But it's not humiliation that he's after. No, this time it's the opposite, which almost makes it worse.

The ceremony is short; field promotions are rarely celebrated like other promotions. Racetrack and Frosty look on, and she can almost see the weight lifted from their shoulders as the commander pins her new Captain insignia on her uniform.

Adama steps back and salutes and Kara doesn't know what else to do but return the gesture. She thinks she should smile, should look something other than somber but can't quite manage it. The old man offers her his hand and she shakes it, unsurprised when he reaches around with his other arm to pull her into a hug.

"Congratulations, Starbuck." She manages half a smile and a nod and manages to meet his eyes as he steps back. She doesn't believe him, knows that if Lee were still here, if there was anyone with more experience she'd still be at lieutenant, but there isn't, and though Racetrack and Frosty were functioning, getting the work of the CAG done, neither of them have the years to pull off the position.

She turns and Tigh salutes her and she feels like the ground is slipping from beneath her feet.

[][][]

She starts sleeping in the CAG's office the fourth night it's hers.

She's unsurprised it takes so short an amount of time for news to make its way across the fleet, but it still seems strange when the first person approaches her on the flight deck. The woman is small and nervous and eyes the vipers with fear instead of respect and Kara knows she doesn't belong here.

She's about to start yelling when the woman pulls something from her pocket, offers it up with trembling hands.

It's a picture, faded and torn and Kara only manages a quick glimpse before the woman speaks, says "Please. I know you were on Caprica and I left my husband and son there-" and that's when Kara realises the woman in the picture is the same woman standing in front of her, except now the woman is small and frail and almost broken by grief. It makes Kara want to recoil from all that emotion, makes her want to drop the picture and run, not walk, from the hanger and find the nearest quiet corner where she can be sick in peace.

Instead she sucks in a breath and hands back the picture with hands that aren't exactly shaking. "I'm sorry," she says. "I didn't see them."

The woman says "Oh please, please, look again. Please." And one of Tyrol's crew finally realises something is amiss and steps forward and grabs the woman under the elbow and pulls her towards the exit.

Kara turns back to the Viper she was checking but doesn't see the aluminum skin in front of her, can only hear the voice of the woman as she pleads for Kara to take another look, to look closer.

The woman is the first of many; she can't get lunch or wash her face without someone hovering at her elbow, hope in their eyes and a picture in hand. The other pilots notice, start to form up around her, deflecting people as much as they can, but when she's woken up in her bunk three nights in a row (can't dog the hatch in a room that has people constantly going in and out.) she grabs Helo and Hot Dog and rolls up her mattress, moves the desk in her office and makes a bed against the wall.

It's not comfortable, and it's too damn cold without nineteen other bodies heating the air but it's better than seeing the faces of the dead every time she rolls over.

[][][]

Kara's not a third of the way through Frosty's logs when she pushes back from her desk and looks for something to distract herself with for a little while.

She doesn't know the names of all the pilots in the ready room and when Racetrack gets up to go to the head, Kara grabs her arm and puts names to faces, matches Goalie, Trump and Hawkeye with the information she's read in their files.

Gaeta catches her eye and waves her over and soon she's dealt in despite the fact she's got nothing to wager with. Greenback slides a cup of something towards her and Stinger slips her a pair of socks and half a bar of soap and that's enough to get Kara started.

She's been reading through Frosty and Racetrack's reports starting with the most recent and working her way backwards so she can keep track of which issues have been resolved and which haven't, so it's not exactly her fault when she looks around and notices something is missing and asks where Crashdown's disappeared to.

Everything at the table stops and Kara knows, takes a breath and licks her lips and wants to squeeze her eyes shut because of course something happened that prevented him from being at the table.

"He's - he was on Kobol." Gaeta's voice is quiet and he doesn't look up from his cards. "Tyrol, Cally, Seelix, and Dr. Baltar were the only ones who came back, and the Doc's in a coma."

"Oh." There's absolutely nothing else to say.

Greenback breaks the silence, says "Ante up," and Kara throws more into the pot than she should.

[][][]

Kara stumbles upon the gathering of Geminons by accident. She recognizes Sergeant Bright from a hundred different stays in the brig, but has to look twice to recognize him under the weight of his devotions, head bent low and eyes closed, lips whispering well-known and well-loved prayers.

All ten have their heads bent, and they stand in a circle, too difficult to calculate the position to face, the direction of Kobol while floating in space. Towards each other has emerged as the acceptable substitute in the fleet. Their postures are all the same, heads bent and eyes closed and lips moving so no one sees her when steps just through the door way, as she joins them, silently mouthing the words.

Lords of Kobol, here our prayers.

[][][]

Kara has meetings with Tyrol twice a week. Before, before Lee, the CAG met with Tyrol to go over schedules and to keep things running smoothly. Now she and Tyrol lay their increasingly bare rosters side by side and try to ensure proper coverage.

"Too bad the Cylons aren't working on the same clock as we are," she mutters when she suggests cutting some of the back shifts and the chief simply shifts his hand and taps the attack report from three weeks ago when a squad of raiders had shown up out of nowhere in the middle of Galactica's night.

"The number of flight-ready Vipers is going to fall any day now. We can count on that keeping some of the pilots grounded, but the deck crew will need supplementing, sir."

Kara has told the chief to call her Kara or Starbuck a hundred times and it's never quite taken. He'll call her by her call sign to get her attention in a crowd bit otherwise it's all yes sir, no sir and she almost itches every time he says it, wants to look over her shoulder for the old man, or Tigh, or Lee.

Granted, she rarely calls him anything but Chief, but then again, he's never asked her to.

[][][]

Kara is still the only flight instruction in the fleet qualified to train combat pilots. As point of fact, she's the only flight instructor left in this half of the fleet, but that's semantics.

Frak, she's tired. She's not going to complain because there is no one to take up the hundred and twelve tasks she's responsible for, but when one of the nuggets asks her how to perform a maneuver and all he can mange is a "Huh" and a "you know, you, uh" and then her hand jerking around a phantom stick, she knows she's in over her head but the nuggets still look at her like she might just be a god, and sometimes the other pilots get that weird look in their eyes when they see her, like she's returned from the dead, and she isn't in deep enough that she's willing to disappoint them. She'll cope; she always does.

[][][]

It's a long time into the night shift when she finally reaches the halfway point on her pile of paperwork. She props her elbows on her desk and digs her fingers into her tired eyes, holds them there and would swear the tears she feels against her finger tips are just from pressing too hard.

Someone raps on the hatch and she straightens quickly, make sure her desk doesn't look as disorganized as it is. "Come," she says and watches the door swing, sees Helo poke his head around the corner.

"You still up?" he asks around his sucker.

"Yeah, I've got-" and she gestures to the desk. The months between Lee leaving and her return didn't see many pilot eval forms being completed, or even a simple rotation of the deck schedule. Helo seems to take something she says or does as an invitation and ducks in through the hatch, saunters to the other side of her desk and pulls the chair Ripper kept there and Lee never bothered to move.

"Karl, I've got a lot to do and I don't have time. . ." she trails off as she smells his lollipop. Cherry. His favorite.

"I know you do, Starbuck." And he pulls the pen she hadn't noticed from behind his ear and reaches for a pile of papers.

"Helo, frak, you can't read those," and she reaches across the desk to try to yank them out of his hands, but he pulls his hand and the stack of papers away and smiles around the sucker in his mouth.

"Says who? These are-" and he takes a second to glance at the pile in his hand. "-Raptor pilot and ECO evals. Who knows these guys better than I do?"

"Helo-" she says, her voice stern.

"Kara-" and his voice is just as steady and he reaches out to grasp the wrist of the hand reaching across her desk towards him. "You're not doing anyone any good working yourself to death. It's going to catch up with you." And Kara remembers having this conversation with someone else, except she was on the other side of both the argument and the desk.

Kara sighs and closes her eyes and tries to figure out what the harm would be to have Helo help. A second with her eyes closed and she realises that it is late, and Helo was on mids and should be asleep right now. She cracks an eye open and he's got circles under his eyes to rival her own.

She's better at being a friend and a distraction than she is at being a commander right now, so she opens her eyes and sighs again and says "Okay. But you've got to at least attempt to make your handwriting legible."

And Helo smiles and clears a space on her desk and holds his sucker between his molars and hums to himself and Kara thinks that as distracting as he is, at least she's not alone.

[][][]

Sometimes the feeling hits her so hard she can't breathe. She wants to go home, away from here and back where she's safe and where she can feel the ground beneath her feet.

The problem is, the same problem she's had her entire life, she's not sure exactly where home is. Sometimes she worries that she's longing for a feeling she's never really had, and that worry helps her breathe through the absolute compulsion to drop everything and leave here.

She says something, late one night, something stupid and foolish and it's only tiredness, only utter exhaustion that allows her to talk about Lee without carefully choosing her words.

The old man takes a little too long pouring her a second glass of water and she knows he's looking at the picture Tyrol found and framed and mounted way back when.

"He looked good," she knows she was thinking it but suddenly it's there, in the air between them and she wants desperately to take it back.

Adama's shoulders stay rigid and she can almost believe he didn't hear her as he slowly picks up the decanter on his desk and pours.

But then he turns, two glasses in hand and shakes his head just a little. He walks to her, hands her a glass and taps his against hers before taking a sip.

She follows suit, tries to think of any other topic of conversation.

"At least-" the old man pauses as he sits. "I think he's learned something." Kara looks into her glass and tries to decide if she wants to hear this.

"When he was little, the least little thing would set him off. He'd be all arms and fists and fury, just windmilling his arms until he hit something. Gave me a black eye when he was four because he didn't want to go home from the park and I had a shuttle back to my ship to catch." He pauses and catches her eye, smiles a little and she can't hold his look, keeps her eyes on her glass and tries not to show how eager she is for this unknown moment.

"When he started school, boy, his mother and I were always meeting with the teacher, trying to figure out how to get him to stop fighting. He wasn't a bully, just didn't know how else to deal with things, it seemed. Caroline would sit him down and he'd look at the floor until she'd raise his chin and look him in those blue eyes and he'd never give up a thing, just set his jaw and stare right back at her." Kara can't help the smile, knows that look, has been on the receiving end more than once.

"And then I was gone more than I was there and suddenly he was a young man and had learned to pick his battles. The first time I saw him in two years I picked him up from the principal’s office for hitting some other punk. The other kid had been harassing Zak and some of his friends, but that was beside the point." Kara can hear the strange sort of pride in Adama's voice and ventures a glimpse, catches the soft half smile on the man's face and wishes his sons were here to see it.

"Of course, then he went off to the Academy and the next time I saw him he was using words instead of his fists and I'd had nothing to do with the change."

And for just a second Kara's tempted to tell him that the change wasn't complete but she couldn't, even now wanted the old man to think well of his son.

"And I guess he's using his words now. His words and his voice and his body. Everything but his fists." Adama's voice is wry, "I guess I should be thankful."

And Kara wishes she knew what to say, instead takes a sip of her water and makes a careful "Huh-" noise and Adama clears his throat and asks about the new set of nuggets.


[][][]

Dee wakes her up with a hand on her left shoulder. Kara is awake immediately but doesn't flinch. Those who needed to learned long ago the Kara Thrace system of left for safe, right for danger. At least Kara figured they'd learned when she'd broken some poor staff sergeant’s nose when he'd grabbed her right shoulder and tried to wake her up.

Dee's hand is tight on her shoulder and Kara rolls it to get Dee to loosen her grip. The other woman chokes out a breath and says "the old man. You've - we - sickbay." And Kara is on her feet and in the corridor before Dee has a chance to catch up.

Doc Cottle turns from the commander and looks to Tigh as Kara arrives. He meets her eyes only briefly and Kara concentrates on the sound of Dee stumbling into something that rattles metallically while she tries to calm her breathing.

"It's not good and I don't know how bad because the only machine we have to tell us that has been broken since before the cylons attacked the first time." Over his shoulder, Kara notices the chief up to his elbows in something. Tyrol meets her eyes and lets his chin drop just enough that she knows he won't be able to fix it.

"I think the clot is gone, but I can't be sure. I've got him on all the meds I can find that might help, but I can't promise anything." Next to her, Tigh drops his head and runs a hand over his scalpel.

"Doc-" Tigh starts, but the Doc fixes him with a glare Kara recognizes from a hundred therapy sessions.

"Saul. You're in charge right now. You might be after Bill wakes up. He's not - I can't tell what the effects will be." Dee muffles a sob and Cottle shoots her a dirty look and Kara takes a deep breath.

"There's not much to do right now. If we were a praying bunch, I'd suggest prayer, but the gods know we don't have much faith left in them now." Kara nods because it's expected.

"He'd like to know you were all here, I think." Cottle turns away and rummages in his pocket. The cigarette is in his mouth and lit in one smooth, practiced motion. Dee takes a step towards the bed and grasps the old man's hand. Cottle makes an approving noise and raises an eyebrow at Kara and Tigh.

Tigh doesn't look at her and clears his throat. He steps forward and takes the commander's other hand.

Kara blinks and sees nothing else to hold, so, in retrospect, she thinks she made her apologies and left the room.

She can't remember much of the trip back to her room, but she's there and her idols are in her hands and Aphrodite smiles and Athena looks wise and Kara prays, even though maybe she worries that she's given up on the gods.

[][][]

Adama wakes up when Kara is on patrol but Dee sends her a priority one message over the wireless.

"Starbuck, Galactica. Husker is awake from his nap." Kara takes a second to roll her eyes before her viper moves into a barrel roll without her conscious control. She hears Hot Dog cursing over the wireless and realises Dee sent the message straight to her.

"If I catch any of you rooks doing that, I'll have your wings." Her voice is light and Hot Dog and Stinger laugh in a confused sort of way.

[][][]

Three weeks later she catches the old man on his way to the bathroom, and she literally catches him as he stumbles.

"Thanks," he wheezes and she helps him into the chair beside the bed, because the bed suddenly seems too far away.

He looks up at her and smiles, the left side drooping down and turning into a sort of grimace. For a moment, Kara can see Lee's sardonic half smirk in his face but she has other things to worry about right now, so she pushes any thoughts of the sons of the man in front of her out of her thoughts.

"Should you be up?"

Adama doesn't smile, just looks her straight in the eye. "I can't stay in that bed forever."

Kara looks meaningfully at the pile of paper work on his bedside table. "You're getting plenty done. I think you can takes some time to recover."

She almost misses the expression that flashes over his face. "What?"

He frowns and looks away. "I'm not going to recover. The doc admitted that if I was going to regain control of my arm, I should have seen some improvement by now."

Kara is stunned into silence. Normally she'd have something to say, some joke or some truth but she knows the old man wants neither.

Instead she says "Okay. Okay. What can I do?"

[][][]

More often than not, Kara - useless, undeserving - can't look down at the front of her own uniform because she knows she shouldn't have that particular captain's cluster pinned to her front.

And some days it's worse than others and all she wants to do is pull the covers up over her head and not sleep, exactly, because that's too hard in coming sometimes, but just lie there and not move and consume as little air and food and water because she's not sure she really deserves it.

And it's on those days Kara realises she isn't as hard to read as she thinks she is because on those days Helo drags her to a card game or Hot Dog or Cat still insist they need their old flight instructor to show them one more maneuver or the Old Man refuses to eat dinner alone or, more rarely, the Cylons show up on the edges of the DRADIS and she's too busy to coddle herself.

And if sometimes, in the middle of the attempts at distracting her, Kara stops and remembers that this used to be Zak's job, and then Lee's, well, she lets whoever is around propel her forward and doesn't think about it any longer than she has to.

None of it makes her feel any better, but it distracts her, and maybe that's enough.

[][][]

Kara thinks things can't get any worse and lies her head down on a stack of requisition forms.

[][][]

Kara is going over pilot rosters in CIC when Gaeta looks up from his screen. "DRADIS contact, sir." Kara tenses and looks up but there's something strange in Gaeta's voice, something missing from his tone.

"It's - it's the other part of the fleet, sir."

Across the room, Dee looks up from her screens. "They've sent the proper codes, sir. All eight ships."

Tigh pauses and takes a sip of his coffee. "Someone wake the old man." He doesn't look at Kara but Dee and Gaeta do, so she nods and reaches for the phone.

[][][]

She almost doesn't recognize Lee out of uniform. He's smaller than she remembers; his shoulders are less broad and he is less imposing than her mind tells her he should be.

He sits at the President's side, and she mirrors him, sits at Adama's left hand and studies him. He doesn't look up, not to meet her eyes or the eyes of his father.

Mistake and ambush and Cylon traitors and something like the flu running rampant through the other half of the fleet and Kara takes everything in, even manages to take notes but her focus never waivers from the man across from her.

Zarek pushes back from the table and Lee does the same. Zarek doesn't smile but extends him hand. Kara can almost feel the commander hesitate, can feel the tension as he takes a split second to deliberate. He offers his still functioning left hand and she doesn't miss the surprise that flashes on Lee's face. Zarek, a politician to the death she thinks uncharitably, doesn't react at all, merely reaches a little further and grasps the Commander’s wrist with his right hand. Adama does the same, with a promise to send the medical supplies and personnel they'd agreed on in the next hour.

Kara's still watching Lee, catches the second he spends evaluating his father's condition and it's not so much that she's watching but that she knows him so well that allows her to catch his slight discomfort. But he pulls himself together quicker than the Lee she knew ever had, and he follows the President out of the room without another glance at the other side of the table.

[][][]

Adama and Tigh want to know more about the condition of the other half of the fleet, and Kara will always be the pilot the Old Man trusts the most. So, much as she was assigned to watch Lee during the meeting, Starbuck is assigned pilot duty for one of the shuttles full of meds and supplies headed for the Astral Queen.

Kara lands the shuttle and is not surprised no one comes to meet her. Kara lets one of the marines unlatch the door, shuts the raptor down mechanically and follows the last medic out. If she makes the jump down to the deck with a little less grace than she would have a year ago, nobody's paying her enough attention to notice.

The Astral Queen is a different ship from the last time she last visited. They emerge into the former jail area to find more than half the cells have been converted into makeshift market stalls. Their guide directs them through the eerily empty halls, and Kara thinks she catches sight of eyes watching her from with some cells, but it's hard to tell. It seems the first thing most of the prisoners did was to erect walls, sometimes no more than filmy quilts of scrap fabric, to allow them some semblance of privacy. Kara finds she can respect that.

They are paraded down an aisle that seems to have become a sort of makeshift market. Kara wonders where the goods are coming from, wonders what people are paying for half-rotten apples and musty blankets, but isn't given the chance to stop and ask.

The cells where the sick have gathered are at the far end of the Astral Queen.

"Families refused to be separated, so in most cases they all got sick," their escort doesn't exactly meet anyone's eyes and Kara wonders what he's hiding.

The medics she's escorting turn the corner and already have their med kits half unpack by the time Kara joins them.

She's never seen anything like this, never seen people stacked end to end, lying on pallets, dying while their mother father sister brother daughter son lies next to them and holds their hand, ensuring their own death.

"If you're healthy, you're fine." The unexpected voice of the man escorting them makes Kara jump, just a little. "It's when you haven't had enough to eat and are worn down that you really become susceptible."

"How did this happen?" She doesn't think he'll tell her but it never hurts to ask.

The man watches the pair in front of her, watches the younger woman force a little water down the other woman's throat. He doesn't answer.

[][][]

Kara waits and watches and lets the medics do their work. Ten hours pass, then fifteen and as they approach twenty Kara starts to notice them doing stupid things, exposing themselves unnecessarily. The escort's words about being run down ring in Kara's ears and she calls an end to their work.

One medic straightens her shoulders and tries to refuse. Kara considers slinging the smaller woman over her shoulder but knows that won't work.

"I'm not leaving this ship, and neither are they." She gestures over her shoulder at the small cadre of medics who are now standing behind her, postures defiant.

And Kara is not heartless. She turns to their escort. "Can you-"

He cuts her off. "Already taken care of. Bunks are this way." He starts off and the medics slowly follow, taking their time in packing their supplies and checking on patients one last time.

Kara makes sure they are taken somewhere safe, makes sure everyone is settled and then takes the bunk nearest the door. They've got enough room that there's no one up top.

There's no chatter in the room and Kara lies and listens as breaths elongate and the gentle buzz of snoring and dreaming envelop the room.

She lies and stares at the bottom of the bunk above her and doesn't close her eyes for a long time.

[][][]

A hand on her left shoulder and she's awake and half upright because even though left is safe, left is okay, there aren't enough people on this shift who know that.

Her eyes are bleary for just a second but Kara still knows, can still see him even as she blinks in the dim light.

Lee's hand loosens and he breathes "Hey" and she almost wants to hit him, wants to use the power bunches in the muscles of her right arm, use the fist that had curled the moment she thought it might be him.

But, but, and Kara hates that she has to take even a second to think, but instead she curls her other hand into his shirt and pulls him down and towards her and attacks him with her mouth.

He kisses her back and somehow makes her go slowly and gently and his hands slide up under her tanks and Kara takes a second to pull the curtain closed but that's the last thought she allows herself to have.

It's ridiculous how much easier this is the second time, how natural, how normal, how strange that she doesn't give this change in their frakked up relationship a second thought.

One hand reaches her breast and she arches her back and bites back a sigh.

[][][]

Kara wakes to Lee's arm around her and his face pressed into her neck.

She lets herself to take one moment to close her eyes and point her toes and just try to imprint this feeling on her skin. One breath, and then another, and then another and if she doesn't get up now she's not going to.

She prays that Lee is a heavy sleeper and lifts his arm, lays it gingerly between them and reaches out to pull open the curtain. She slides out of bed and crouches on the cold floor and finds someone has carefully folder her clothes and placed them on the chair next to her bunk.

Frak, she thinks, and can maybe recall Lee flinging her shirts and pants away, maybe out the bottom of the curtain.

A quick glance and the other curtains are mostly open, the medics up and back to their duties. She checks her watch, needs to make it to a com panel soon.

She needs to go for a hundred different reasons, the least of which meets her eyes as she looks up from her wrist.

"Kara-" he says quietly, but she cuts him off.

"I'm late. I need to make my report or this place will be swarming with marines." Her voice is rough from sleep and not from muffling sounds into his skin.

He nods, props himself on one elbow and watches her shrug into her jacket. She's on the last button when he speaks. "Come back when you're done."

She doesn't look at him, knows she's never at her best when she's lying to him. "I'll try."

She finds the hanger bay and the raptor and she settles into the ECO chair and sends a message through Dee.

She hears Adama's voice on the wireless and smoothes her hair, feels almost like he can see her and knows what she was doing and knows he would disapprove.

[][][]


She doesn't need to go back to her bunk and she knows Lee better than he thinks she does and she knows he'll have left by now, so instead she meets up with the Galatica crew, slipping into the room without much notice.

She's pressed into service here and there, holding things and people and carting around boxes of supplies. In a few hours, one of the medics comes to stand beside her and looks over the room. "We've done all we can for now, I think," she says in her clipped accent. "They know what to do to get better, and I think we've taught the others how not to get infected. This should all clear up in a week."

The woman doesn't meet Kara's eyes, and Kara is pretty sure it's because she's too busy watching her patients. The Galactica's medics are made of pretty stern stuff, and Kara's pretty sure they were all too tired to have stayed awake long enough to hear anything anyways.

[][][]

The medics start packing their bags and the room changes. Kara can hear the low murmurs and moves her finger a centimetre closer to the safety of her gun.

"You can't leave!" a woman cries from one of the cots. Her voice is low and Kara thinks she sounds like she's been crying.

Kara clenches her hand more tightly on the butt of her rifle and watches as people start to move towards her and the medics. Some of her people are trying to soothe their patients but it's not working and out of the corner of her eye, Kara sees several armed men enter the room, followed by Zarek.

"Friends," he says, and opens his arms wide like a benevolent dictator. "Calm yourselves. They're not leaving. Surely not when there are the ill to be treated?" He smiles, just a little, and it feels like something crawls down Kara's spine.

She's not sure where they're coming from but suddenly people begin to flood the room, some supporting others, all bearing the marks of the illness they thought they had beat.

Kara grabs the arm of the nearest medic to her. "Can we help them?" The man looks bewildered.

"This many? No way. We've got the medicine for maybe half, but even that's optimistic." Kara catches the eye of the marine nearest to her and he nods slightly,

She brings her gun up, speaks through the din. "We're leaving."

Zarek smiles again. "Ah, Lieutenant Thrace. I was told you were here. Lee will be so pleased that you're staying."

"Let us go or I'll shoot your frakking head off." Zarek inclines his head magnanimously.

"Do you think they'll let the only people who can save them just walk out of here?" and as if on cue the sick begin to edge towards them.

The marine looks at her again and she nods, just enough and then in tandem everyone who is armed flips their rifles around and start to take anyone who gets close enough to the ground.

They almost form a circle around the medics, but more often than Kara would like someone reaches in a grabs a hold of someone or something and Kara has to knock some one else down. She feels sick herself but knows this is probably the best option for everyone.

They make it into the corridor and then hustle, marines leading the charge and people screaming behind them and Kara pushes the woman in front of her when she tries to turn and look.

"Don't." Kara says, prods her shoulder again. "There's nothing you can do." And the woman turns and her mouth is open and then it snaps shut as something flies over their heads and hits the walls and they both swerve around it.

[][][]

They hit the cargo bay and the first marines in have already disarmed the men guarding their raptors. The doors are open and people are piling in, fitting where ever they can when the hair on the back of Kara's neck prickles and she turns, unsurprised to see Lee standing there, his side arm raised and pointed in her general direction.

"Lee," she says, thinks her tone says don't be stupid and put that down and don't frakking do this to me but he doesn't hear that, just tightens his grip.

She can hear hatches closing and sealing behind her and she knows Stevens can fly the raptor if he needs to. She tries Lee, takes a step backwards and stops as he takes a step closer.

"Stay or go, Kara," Lee's hand doesn't waver and for just a second Kara can't believe this is happening, can't believe he's making her make this choice at the end of a gun.

"Lee-" she says, starts to take a step towards him. He can't be serious.

But he is. "Stay or go." And for just a second she thinks he softens, can see his shoulders fall, sag an inch. "Stay, Kara. Stay or go."

She doesn't have to make a decision. She raises her hands in a gesture of surrender, cocks her head to one side and looks at him. Something in the way he can't quite hold her eyes makes some of this suddenly make sense.

"Let them go and I'll stay. It's what Zarek wants, isn't it? Some way to control you." And something twitches in his jaw and over his shoulder she can see five of Zarek's goons, their guns trained on him and not her or the raptors.

"You'll -?" She nods, slowly, and watches as he slowly, slowly lowers the gun and starts to walk towards her. She edges back slowly, hopes he and the others watching him don't notice.

She wishes she recognized the man coming towards her. "Oh, Lee," she sighs and when he's no more than a foot away she hooks her foot around his ankle, takes him down and takes his gun.

He looks up at her and she sees down the barrel of the gun something that might look like relief on his face.

"Okay," she says, sure of what she has to do but not sure of how to do it. "Okay-" and that's when the blast hits her left shoulder and she falls, stunned, tries to bring her arm up to slow her fall but that just sends fire arching down the side of her body and she hits the ground and Lee hard and her head cracks against the floor.

[][][]

The medic's hand is cool and smooth and Kara's nearly awake when it leaves her cheek and returns with a slap.

"Lieutenant. Starbuck. Sir, wake up."

Kara opens her eyes and realises the weight on her legs is the woman she had pushed in the hallway, now perched over her lap. Kara closes her eyes again and tries to stop the spinning.

"Sir, we need to get you down to see the doctor, so we're going to lift you out of here, okay?" Tyrol's voice, to the left. She wonders how much of the deck crew is watching her as she sits slouched against the wall of the raptor, unable to move.

"I'm alright, Chief. Just give me a-" she moves an arm to unclip her collar and everything goes white and black and stars dance in front of her even as she gasps with pain and the remembrance of something, something that happened to cause this.

"Kara, sit still." Tyrol's voice is firm and the part of Kara that is numb, sitting somewhere beyond the searing fire of her shoulder thinks he should have gone the officer route. She nods, doesn't say anything because she's afraid she'll fail if she tries and what's Starbuck without a quip?

Cally squirms in around the medic and unbuckles her harness and Tyrol mutters about unconscious pilots and then hands reach in and try to move her and everything is agony and she screams, screams until the black swallows her.

[][][]

"Frakking bastard shot me."

Kara keeps her eyes closed so she can't see his face, but the old man squeezes the hand clasped between his.

"Another thing to lay at the feet of Tom Zarek." Tigh likes to be right more than he dislikes Kara and there's a note of triumph in his voice.

"One more thing," the commander sighs and she wants to tell him the truth about why she got shot, the truth about his son, but that's a familiar feeling and easy to ignore.

[][][]

Kara makes it to CIC with Frosty under her good arm. The smaller man settles her into a seat and stands at her side.

Tigh doesn't meet her eyes, and she avoids looking at the old man. "I think we should blast’em out of the sky. " Kara catches Dee's flinch out of the corner of her eye and is glad she can shield her own reaction.

"Starbuck?" Adama's voice is quiet but still manages to carry. She knows she couldn't pull off the same, knows anything she says right now is either going to be at full volume or come out as little more than a squeak. Instead she squares her shoulders and meets his eyes and knows he knows her well enough to guess what she wants to say.

For a long moment he looks at her. Only Gaeta's voice breaks their look. "The Astral Queen is spinning up her FTL drive, sir. We need to make a decision."

Adama looks around the CIC, meets the eyes of everyone who will dare meet his. He looks at Kara and she hears the things he doesn't say. 30,000 left. Not all of them are derelict. Not all of them are his son. So say we all, except this time only his decision, his voice matters.

"Let them go." It's quiet but strong and Kara lets go of a breath she hadn't realized she was holding.

Gaeta's response is prompt, and soon his voice and Dee's battle, one calling out the steps are the guns are shut down, the other tracking the movement of the other fleet.

Tigh leans heavily against the navigational consol and the commander lowers his eyes to the deck. Kara watches her pilots on the screens, watches them fly back to Galactica, uncharacteristically silent.

She looks away from the screen only when Adama pushes off the strategy table. He won't meet her eyes.

"XO has the bridge," he says, and Kara closes her eyes and offers a silent prayer for what's left of the Adama family.

[][][]

She lies in bed and tries to sleep, but every time she relaxes she remembers the last time she woke up and she jerks awake and pain shoots through her shoulder. She’s trying not to think but she can't quite help it.

Kara gives herself a lot of credit for not falling in love with Lee. It smacks a little too much of fate or destiny or a story from a romance vid to fall in love with her dead fiancé’s brother.

She thinks, in the dead of Galactica's night, alone in her room without even Stinger's snoring to keep her distracted, she thinks she made the right choice in not staying with him, the hard choice. She's gotten good at making the hard choices.

[][][]

The next evening Helo meets her eyes in the mirror in the head as she finishes brushing her teeth for the third time that day.

"He got you onto the raptor. Maybe he'll come back," and some part of Kara thinks it can't get worse than this so she splashes cold, cold water on her face and says "Maybe."

She wants to hit her rack, wants nothing more than eight uninterrupted hours, but there's a stack of pilot evals on her desk and if she doesn't get them done, ten pilots aren't going to be allowed to fly tomorrow so she sighs and heads for her office.


[][][]

She thinks this can't get any worse, and this time she prays she's right.

[][][][ [ [] ] ][][][]


Your unopened letter is in my pocket, beating.

[][][]