Fic: Kara Thrace and her Special Destiny
Jan. 16th, 2008 04:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shah_of_blahKara Thrace and her Special Destiny: In which Lee says some stupid things and Kara pretends to be amused. Post Flesh and Bone.
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em.
Rating: PG
AN: I feel the need to preface this piece by saying that I really wrestled with it. I couldn't get the tone I thought I wanted, and the end result was not what I expected. But here goes.
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em.
Rating: PG
AN: I feel the need to preface this piece by saying that I really wrestled with it. I couldn't get the tone I thought I wanted, and the end result was not what I expected. But here goes.
Lee’s on the hangar deck talking to the Chief when she limps out of the Raptor. He spots her over Tyrol’s shoulder and if she sees him she gives no indication as she tries to stomp away. With her bum knee, it’s more like stomp-hobbling. Lee distractedly wraps up his conversation with the Chief, slapping the clipboard into the other man’s hands. As he turns to follow Starbuck, he catches a faint look of amusement from the Chief, but chooses to ignore it.
He heads for the bunkroom as the first place to look. As he walks the corridors, he tries to pin down why he’s practically chasing after her. Well, he knows why: he’s worried.
He’s always worried.
Sure, they were trained in interrogation techniques in Officer Candidate School, but Lee’s never done it when it really counted, and neither had she before today.
He’s not sure why his father sent Kara. True, there aren’t many officers left who’ve completed OCS. With her knee injury keeping her off CAP, he supposes Starbuck was the logical choice. But ‘Starbuck’ and ‘logical’ are two words that are rarely paired together. She lacks patience and the ability to control her rather volatile temper. He wouldn’t have sent her to interrogate the Cylon, at least not without someone to play good cop to her bad.
But his father always seems to pick Starbuck, no matter her shortcomings.
Lee cuts off that train of thought before it can distract him from the task at hand: find Kara, talk to Kara. He reasons that he’d be worried about anyone who’d just spent eight hours with the enemy. He’s not just concerned because of the odd look on her face that he can’t name, or the stiff set of her shoulders as she stomp-hobbled out of the hangar.
Not that he was watching that closely.
He pauses with his hand on the hatch to the bunkroom. Confronting a potentially pissed-off Starbuck doesn’t seem like the best of ideas, but he’s come this far, so he pushes the hatch open.
She’s alone, standing in front of her locker. When she hears the hatch, she spins around to face him, but not before hastily shoving something into her locker and slamming it shut. She crosses her arms and leans against the locker door.
“Hey, Lee.”
Now that he’s facing her he’s not so sure what he’s supposed to be doing. She looks normal. Maybe a little tense, but that’s to be expected. Trying for casual, he walks over and sits on the bench by her bunk, bumping her good knee with his own as he does so.
“So, Starbuck, I hear you made a new friend.” Okay, that sounds lamer than it had in his head. No choice now but to fly with it. “Must be your winning personality.”
She snorts indelicately, looking as though that’s the stupidest thing she’s ever heard. “Yeah, Lee, me and the Cylon are like this.” She holds up one hand, two fingers pressed tightly together.
“I bet it was a real party, ‘til the President busted it up.”
“She took exception to my methods.” She says this dryly, quietly, without a hint of her usual aplomb. He’s not sure what to make of that. On the one hand, she tends to be more honest this way, but on the other hand, it’s difficult to be glad that she’s not happy.
She turns her head slightly, swallowing harshly and avoiding his gaze. As she twists her neck to the left a grimace crosses her features and he feels icy coldness come over him at the sight.
“Where,” he stammers a little, “where did you get those?” He indicates the dark reddish-purple fingermarks adorning her pale throat, beneath the hard line of her jaw.
Her gaze flicks toward him before darting away again. “Cylon, he –” she swallows again, looks down at her hands; then it’s as if a switch has been thrown in her brain because suddenly she’s facing him again and the hint of a wry smile is playing across her face. “He took exception to my methods too.” She lowers herself into her bunk with some difficulty and his hand on her arm. “Must be that winning personality.”
“Must be.” He looks at her and tries to cover up his concern because he’s sure she’d twist it into pity, and neither of them would like the result. “Seriously, Starbuck. You okay?”
She ignores his attempt to be serious, which he decides to interpret as a good sign. “When am I ever okay?” she asks with a smile and a quirk of the eyebrows.
He thinks that maybe he shouldn’t find that as reassuring as he does, but in their post-apocalyptic world just the fact that she’s attempting humor is comforting. Some things haven’t changed, and Kara’s self-deprecating humor is just another one of those inevitable facts of life. Like the fact that his brother and mother are dead, and he never wanted to be a soldier but he doesn’t know how to be anything else. He can rail at these certainties all he wants, but they’re stronger than him and they don’t budge. It’s easier to just let her joke; besides, Starbuck’s ego barely fits in her cockpit as it is.
“Well, I hear he wasn’t too chatty,” he says without skipping a beat.
“Oh, he was plenty chatty,” she replies, leaning back in her bunk and hauling her bad leg up to rest on the mattress. “All this psycho-babble about streams and scripture.” She reaches into some darkened corner of her rack and emerges with a cigar. She lights it up and takes a puff, blowing the smoke in his direction of course. “Says I’ve got a destiny,” she says with a smirk, eyes wide and eyebrows raised.
That’s unexpected. What the frak does he know about destiny? He scoffs at the idea. “What kind of destiny could you have? To annoy me for the rest of our natural lives?”
“Everyone has a skill. I happen to be specially endowed with two!”
She laughs, really truly laughs and the sound is as wild and free and jubilant as ever. This, he thinks, this is why he came after her, why he will always come after her. Because at the end of the day, Cylons can steal their homes, their lives, and maybe they can rattle the ever-stoic Starbuck, but as long as he can hear her laughter he thinks he’ll make it to tomorrow.
He heads for the bunkroom as the first place to look. As he walks the corridors, he tries to pin down why he’s practically chasing after her. Well, he knows why: he’s worried.
He’s always worried.
Sure, they were trained in interrogation techniques in Officer Candidate School, but Lee’s never done it when it really counted, and neither had she before today.
He’s not sure why his father sent Kara. True, there aren’t many officers left who’ve completed OCS. With her knee injury keeping her off CAP, he supposes Starbuck was the logical choice. But ‘Starbuck’ and ‘logical’ are two words that are rarely paired together. She lacks patience and the ability to control her rather volatile temper. He wouldn’t have sent her to interrogate the Cylon, at least not without someone to play good cop to her bad.
But his father always seems to pick Starbuck, no matter her shortcomings.
Lee cuts off that train of thought before it can distract him from the task at hand: find Kara, talk to Kara. He reasons that he’d be worried about anyone who’d just spent eight hours with the enemy. He’s not just concerned because of the odd look on her face that he can’t name, or the stiff set of her shoulders as she stomp-hobbled out of the hangar.
Not that he was watching that closely.
He pauses with his hand on the hatch to the bunkroom. Confronting a potentially pissed-off Starbuck doesn’t seem like the best of ideas, but he’s come this far, so he pushes the hatch open.
She’s alone, standing in front of her locker. When she hears the hatch, she spins around to face him, but not before hastily shoving something into her locker and slamming it shut. She crosses her arms and leans against the locker door.
“Hey, Lee.”
Now that he’s facing her he’s not so sure what he’s supposed to be doing. She looks normal. Maybe a little tense, but that’s to be expected. Trying for casual, he walks over and sits on the bench by her bunk, bumping her good knee with his own as he does so.
“So, Starbuck, I hear you made a new friend.” Okay, that sounds lamer than it had in his head. No choice now but to fly with it. “Must be your winning personality.”
She snorts indelicately, looking as though that’s the stupidest thing she’s ever heard. “Yeah, Lee, me and the Cylon are like this.” She holds up one hand, two fingers pressed tightly together.
“I bet it was a real party, ‘til the President busted it up.”
“She took exception to my methods.” She says this dryly, quietly, without a hint of her usual aplomb. He’s not sure what to make of that. On the one hand, she tends to be more honest this way, but on the other hand, it’s difficult to be glad that she’s not happy.
She turns her head slightly, swallowing harshly and avoiding his gaze. As she twists her neck to the left a grimace crosses her features and he feels icy coldness come over him at the sight.
“Where,” he stammers a little, “where did you get those?” He indicates the dark reddish-purple fingermarks adorning her pale throat, beneath the hard line of her jaw.
Her gaze flicks toward him before darting away again. “Cylon, he –” she swallows again, looks down at her hands; then it’s as if a switch has been thrown in her brain because suddenly she’s facing him again and the hint of a wry smile is playing across her face. “He took exception to my methods too.” She lowers herself into her bunk with some difficulty and his hand on her arm. “Must be that winning personality.”
“Must be.” He looks at her and tries to cover up his concern because he’s sure she’d twist it into pity, and neither of them would like the result. “Seriously, Starbuck. You okay?”
She ignores his attempt to be serious, which he decides to interpret as a good sign. “When am I ever okay?” she asks with a smile and a quirk of the eyebrows.
He thinks that maybe he shouldn’t find that as reassuring as he does, but in their post-apocalyptic world just the fact that she’s attempting humor is comforting. Some things haven’t changed, and Kara’s self-deprecating humor is just another one of those inevitable facts of life. Like the fact that his brother and mother are dead, and he never wanted to be a soldier but he doesn’t know how to be anything else. He can rail at these certainties all he wants, but they’re stronger than him and they don’t budge. It’s easier to just let her joke; besides, Starbuck’s ego barely fits in her cockpit as it is.
“Well, I hear he wasn’t too chatty,” he says without skipping a beat.
“Oh, he was plenty chatty,” she replies, leaning back in her bunk and hauling her bad leg up to rest on the mattress. “All this psycho-babble about streams and scripture.” She reaches into some darkened corner of her rack and emerges with a cigar. She lights it up and takes a puff, blowing the smoke in his direction of course. “Says I’ve got a destiny,” she says with a smirk, eyes wide and eyebrows raised.
That’s unexpected. What the frak does he know about destiny? He scoffs at the idea. “What kind of destiny could you have? To annoy me for the rest of our natural lives?”
“Everyone has a skill. I happen to be specially endowed with two!”
She laughs, really truly laughs and the sound is as wild and free and jubilant as ever. This, he thinks, this is why he came after her, why he will always come after her. Because at the end of the day, Cylons can steal their homes, their lives, and maybe they can rattle the ever-stoic Starbuck, but as long as he can hear her laughter he thinks he’ll make it to tomorrow.
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no subject
Date: 2008-01-17 12:09 am (UTC)1) you addressed the whole issue of 'why send Starbuck' because she was really a terrible choice for interrogation
2) this line going with #1: But his father always seems to pick Starbuck, no matter her shortcomings. Yup. And it would get tiresome for so many reasons.
3) “So, Starbuck, I hear you made a new friend.” Okay, that sounds lamer than it had in his head. No choice now but to fly with it.
Heh, Lee really is awkward at times; I like how you captured that.
4) “When am I ever okay?” she asks with a smile and a quirk of the eyebrows.
Nice display of her attitude.
5) Lee being sort-of reassured by #4. Oh Lee...
So good, I'm glad I read it.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-17 01:58 am (UTC)And yes, Starbuck is a crappy interrogator, and Lee may have good intentions but he says some really dumb things sometimes.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-17 02:11 am (UTC)I particularly like the tiny details like the Chief being amused at Lee, Kara quickly hiding her idols, Lee's cold terror at seeing Leoben's fingerprints around her neck.
And ending it with Lee focusing on Kara's laughter. Very nice! I imagine that if Lee ever got Kara for himself he'd devote a good deal of time to making her laugh (giggling and all).
no subject
Date: 2008-01-18 07:00 am (UTC)And in my fantasyBSG world, Lee pretty much devotes his life to making her life.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-17 02:34 am (UTC)I don't know what your original plan for this story was, but I think it's perfect the way it is.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-18 07:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-18 12:43 pm (UTC)There were a few things I particularly liked ~
But ‘Starbuck’ and ‘logical’ are two words that are rarely paired together. She lacks patience and the ability to control her rather volatile temper. He wouldn’t have sent her to interrogate the Cylon, at least not without someone to play good cop to her bad.
But his father always seems to pick Starbuck, no matter her shortcomings.
How true that is. Starbuck is rarely the logical choice for the missions Adama sends her on but he does anyway.
“So, Starbuck, I hear you made a new friend.” Okay, that sounds lamer than it had in his head. No choice now but to fly with it. “Must be your winning personality.”
I love Lee's lame sense of humour. It fits with how it is on the show. :) And the fact that Kara laughs at him is great!
He thinks that maybe he shouldn’t find that as reassuring as he does, but in their post-apocalyptic world just the fact that she’s attempting humor is comforting. Some things haven’t changed, and Kara’s self-deprecating humor is just another one of those inevitable facts of life. Like the fact that his brother and mother are dead, and he never wanted to be a soldier but he doesn’t know how to be anything else. He can rail at these certainties all he wants, but they’re stronger than him and they don’t budge.
That is a particularly great look into Lee's mind - his thoughts on Kara and his own life are painful but very true.
She laughs, really truly laughs and the sound is as wild and free and jubilant as ever. This, he thinks, this is why he came after her, why he will always come after her. Because at the end of the day, Cylons can steal their homes, their lives, and maybe they can rattle the ever-stoic Starbuck, but as long as he can hear her laughter he thinks he’ll make it to tomorrow.
I love this. Lee will always come after Kara even when she spurns him because to him she means life. Without her, there is nothing for him.
Great little story! Thanks for sharing it. :)
no subject
Date: 2008-01-21 04:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-21 08:05 pm (UTC)No kidding eh? :)
It was a nice piece - sometimes it's good to explore the early days between them, how their relationship grew to be what it is now. I enjoy doing that on occasion too.
(btw I'm also
no subject
Date: 2008-01-20 01:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-21 04:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-04 09:33 pm (UTC)My favorite parts are these, they sum up their behaviour around each other beautifully:
"He looks at her and tries to cover up his concern because he’s sure she’d twist it into pity, and neither of them would like the result."
"She ignores his attempt to be serious, which he decides to interpret as a good sign. “When am I ever okay?” she asks with a smile and a quirk of the eyebrows."
no subject
Date: 2008-10-04 10:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-04 10:15 pm (UTC)Is it ok if I friend you?
no subject
Date: 2008-10-04 10:55 pm (UTC)Welcome to the fandom :)
no subject
Date: 2008-10-04 11:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-01 09:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-02 04:23 am (UTC)