Fic: The Breath Between (1/4)
Jun. 27th, 2010 10:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shah_of_blahFor ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
pilotsbigbang ! I am absolutely thrilled to be posting this--I have been working on it for ages, and I came close to dropping out of the challenge. It's good to finally be finished.
Title: The Breath Between
Author: shah_of_blah
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: All seasons
Warnings: None
Summary: Kara's return in "Crossroads" is not what it appears to be.
Word Count: 4800 this part (16k all)
Author's Notes: Many thanks to my cheerleader,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
stripes13 , and my beta, bellaaurora . This fic would have been much worse without their help. Also, I rejected any canon I didn't like. Deal with it.
You’re free now.
“I’m not afraid anymore,” Kara says.
“I’ll see you on the other side,” she says.
To become who you really are.
Fear gets you killed; anger keeps you alive. Two sides of the same coin, Momma. The players change but the story remains the same.
To discover what hovers in the space between life and death.
Kara closes her eyes. Her breath leaves her body. And she flies.
It’s a long time before she lands.
~~~
Lee has never been struck by lightning, but he has had the comparable experience of meeting Kara Thrace. Lee didn’t understand what was happening in that moment when she opened the door and he watched her smile change to look on him. But later, in one of his more maudlin moments, he realized that she had come into his life like a lightning strike. With a smile and a handshake, she had irrevocably carved his life in two, and since that moment there was only before and after.
She leaves his life in the same way—sudden, bright and burning—but still that dotted line, that before and after doesn’t waver. Two months later, and maybe he knows why.
~~~
Don’t lose me this time, Apollo.
Not a chance.
When he lands on the hangar deck and climbs out of his cockpit, Lee doesn’t see her impossibly new, impossibly there Viper. He does see her. She’s standing in the middle of the bay, a single point of stillness, of peace, in the chaos of combat landings. While he watches, she runs a hand through her sweat-dampened hair, slicking it back. It’s an action he’s seen her do countless times, but today it is different. Today it is new.
Because she is.
There’s a moment when she turns and just before her gaze meets his—then the moment is caught, stretched taut by the pull of her eyes. He’s not thinking clearly, Lee knows this, and he might just be dreaming because then she’s in his arms and he doesn’t remember how they got from Point A to Point B. It doesn’t really matter though because wayward strands of her hair are tickling his cheek; she is warm in his arms and her words in his ear are more than he’d dare to dream of.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” she says, and it is. “Me too.”
When the marines come, Lee steps in front of her to face them. They’re led by Colonel Tigh, not his father, and Lee can’t think what that means. As they march down to the brig, Lee’s barely aware of the soldiers and their guns around him; their heavy steps are drowned out, it seems, by the soft sounds of her breathing.
When they reach their destination, the marines put them—Lee and Kara, Apollo and Starbuck, or whoever the hell they are—in the same cell.
“You’ll stay here until we’ve got time to deal with this,” Colonel Tigh says, gruff and dismissive.
Lee registers dimly that he doesn’t know the outcome of the battle.
He is not sure how long they are left to wait. His brain doesn’t seem to be working right, as time keeps moving in skips and jumps. He sits on the single cot in their cell and just watches her.
She paces.
“How can they just…?” she mutters as she impatiently sweeps back her too-long hair. “I mean, Earth, godsdamnit! Earth, and they just….”
She’s stopped pacing and Lee belatedly realizes that she’s staring right at him with that familiar half-angry, all-intense “are you even listening?” look.
Then something changes and she is on the cot beside him. He feels her leg brush against his through the rubber of their flightsuits.
“Hey Lee,” she’s saying, “I just wanted to say thanks. You know, for flying my wing.”
Time skips again and he’s on the other side of the cell, on his hands and knees sucking down oxygen like it’s the sweetest ambrosia. Then her hand is on his back and he can’t hear what she’s saying because her hand is on his back.
His father choosees this moment to interrupt.
“Admiral on deck!” shouts the lonely marine on duty.
Lee stands half-heartedly, shifting anxiously on his feet as he remembers that none of his previous roles apply at this moment, except maybe son, which is the worst of all. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Kara standing rigidly to attention. But the “at ease” she’s waiting for doesn’t come.
Instead, the old man just stares at Lee, and Lee stares back, feeling no particular drive to break the silence.
Finally, the Admiral speaks. “You seized a military vessel and endangered both it and yourself by rushing into a battle in which you did not belong. Do you have anything to say for yourself?”
Lee thinks for a moment. “No,” he says, biting back the automatic sir.
Judging by the expression on his father’s face, this is not the correct answer. But when the old man speaks again, his voice swells with weariness.
“We’ve got Cylons inviting themselves aboard wanting to talk, and I do not have time for your misguided rebellion. It’s time to pick a side, Lee,” the old man says. “To figure out who you’re going to be. A civilian or a soldier.”
But Lee is shaking his head, swallowing down his own weariness and his own frustration. “With all due respect, Dad, we both know why I quit. So really, it’s up to you. Do you have anything to say for yourself?”
The old man is silent, and just like that he’s gone. As though on autopilot, Lee settles back onto the cot, leaning against the bulkhead. It takes him a moment too long to realize that Kara is still standing, facing him now with her hands on her hips.
“Lee,” she says, as though speaking to a not-terribly bright student, “what the hell was he talking about?”
He blinks, takes a moment to gather his thoughts and wish his brain were functioning a little better. “Oh, well. After, uh…well I wasn’t…the Admiral assigned me to security detail for Baltar’s lawyer, and so I started getting involved with the trial, and…. He said some things, and I said some things, and I resigned.” Lee shrugs.
She’s still staring. “Lee,” she says again, “what the hell are you talking about?”
He really doesn’t think her indignation is warranted. After all, he’s not the one who came back from the dead after two months, claiming to have seen Earth. Compared to hers, his explanation is practically a dissertation.
“I resigned from the military. Helped out with Baltar’s trial. Not guilty, by the way.”
“Come on, Apollo. Even you can’t do all that in six hours. What the hell is going on here?”
Six hours? What the hell is right, Lee thinks. “Kara, you…you’ve been gone for two months.”
“What? No frakking way, Lee! I know I passed out but my ship clock read six hours.”
He shakes his head back and forth, wishing he could stop the words he knows he has to say. “Kara, you died. You flew into that storm and you – and I saw it, I saw….” He stops because he must, and because the rest doesn’t really matter now, does it? Not when she’s standing here in front of him, with her flightsuit tied around her waist and her hair just brushing her shoulders.
She seems to deflate though, before his very eyes. Like she’s drifting in zero gravity and doesn’t know up from down. They don’t say much after that.
Eventually, she drifts into an uneasy slumber, stretched out on her side on the cot. Lee sits on the floor by the foot of the bunk. He rests his head back against the bulkhead and keeps his eyes open as long as he can. Maybe he’s afraid that she’ll vanish in the space of a blink, or maybe he just can’t get his fill of her after two months of knowing he’d never have this, never watch her fall asleep and certainly never watch her wake.
The next morning, they still don’t talk much but Kara tells him in halting, stilted words how she flew into the storm driven by some need that she can’t articulate, how she opened her eyes and there was a planet before her and she knew that it was home. And then she was there, in the nebula, flying his wing. Lee hears the rest in her silence, in the soft hitches in her breath; hears how she can’t explain this missing time, and hears how that emptiness could tear her apart.
He doesn’t have time to reassure her (and maybe that’s a blessing, since he doubts that he could) before he’s being summoned to the Admiral’s quarters.
Their marine guard escorts him out of the cell, but only him—evidently Kara’s not invited to this Adama family gathering. As he’s led away, Lee can’t help turning back, fixing her in his sights once more. She stands in the middle of the cell, her face inscrutable as she watches him.
~~~
The meeting with his father does not go well. They stand on opposite sides of the desk, and if that doesn’t symbolize their entire relationship then Lee will hang up his wings. Oh wait, he’s already done that.
“Lee, I know…things haven’t been easy lately. And maybe some days it feels like you’re just getting up in the morning because you don’t know what else to do. And I know that you and I haven’t always seen eye to eye. But I’m proud of you, son. That was a brave thing you did, and maybe…maybe I was too harsh before.”
Lee’s not so far gone that he can’t recognize the significance of this confession, can’t appreciate the difficulty of his father’s apology. But still, none of this feels quite right, quite real; it’s as though half of his reality is behind bars and this office feels dull and dim in comparison.
The old man sighs, rubbing the bridge of his nose with one hand as he speaks. “After what happened at the nebula…things are going to change, one way or another.” He looks up. “We’re going to need the fleet’s best.”
The quiet, unspoken compliment hovers in the air between them, and Lee’s chest expands as he breathes it in. Yet, when the old man offers his post back, Lee says that he’ll think about it. It’s the best that he can do right now. Because this, this is ridiculous and when Adama offers Lee a drink, he can’t keep it in anymore.
“What the hell are we doing here, Dad? I mean, she’s, she said she’s been to Earth and you’re not even, not even going to ask?”
Adama stares at him, much the same way Kara did the night before when he told her about resigning his commission.
“Lee,” he says slowly, “who are you talking about? Who’s been to Earth?”
Has this whole Fleet gone mad? “Who? Who, I—weren’t you listening on the comms?”
“Listening to what?”
“To Kara, Dad!”
His father pales, steps back as though shoved. With a slightly sick feeling, Lee registers the look of pure, unadulterated shock on his father’s face.
“Lee, are you alright?”
No, he thinks. But he can’t say it. He has to get back to the brig. “Am I free to go, sir?”
His father nods, and looks like he wants to say more but Lee turns away. He returns to the brig unescorted. The marine on duty looks surprised to see him, but Lee makes some excuse about forgetting something in the cell. As the marine goes to unlock it, Lee’s eyes find Kara. She’s stretched out on her back on the cot, and her eyes are closed but he knows she’s not sleeping. He almost wishes she were doing push-ups just so he could make some crack about this looking familiar.
Soon he’s through the bars though, and she’s sitting up, about to say something when he wraps his fingers around her wrist. “Come on,” he says softly, hoping that lone guard isn’t paying too much attention. But Lee’s got a theory to prove.
Something in his eyes must convince her, because Kara doesn’t say a word as he leads her out of the cell. She looks back at the guard but he doesn’t look at them, and that sick feeling in Lee’s gut returns. Once they’re a few halls away from the brig, Kara pulls her arm out of his grasp and makes her impatience known.
“Lee, what did he say? Does he believe me?”
He just shakes his head and keeps moving forward. “Later,” he whispers.
She snorts. “Later? Where the frak are we going now, Lee?”
He pauses then, and looks at her. A few crewmembers pass, but pay no attention. Of course they don’t. He wants to reach out and touch her, but doesn’t, remembering the way she’d gently but firmly tugged her hand from his. Still, he smiles.
“Earth,” he tells her. “Or have you forgotten the way?”
~~~
It was wishful thinking that she would forget her questions when they reached his quarters. As soon as the hatch is closed, she’s demanding to know what’s going on, what the Admiral said, if she’s…. Through the frustration, he catches a hint of genuine fear, almost desperation, in her voice.
He knows what he has to say won’t ease her fear. Far from it. He closes his eyes because it’s easier if he doesn’t see her right now.
“My father didn’t mention you at all. Not until I did. He didn’t know what I was talking about. The marines on the flight deck weren’t there for you; they came for me because I stole military property. And, and they put us in the same cell.” He opens his eyes now because he has to; he can’t leave her alone in this.
“When I was gone, did the guard talk to you?” he asks. “Look at you?”
Her eyes are wide and something in her looks brittle as she shakes her head.
“And when we were walking through the halls, did anyone look at you the way they would look at—at someone who came back from the dead?”
“No,” she whispers.
“No,” he says, “they didn’t even see you.”
“No,” she says, “no, that’s impossible. That’s—it doesn’t make any sense, Lee.”
Lee can’t argue with her. It is impossible and it doesn’t make sense. But that’s Kara for you. At his silence, she just shakes her head and turns away from him. He takes a step towards her, but before he can reach her she’s in motion, opening the hatch and dashing out into the corridor.
When Lee steps into the open hatch, he sees her poised in the center of the hall. He’s struck again with the image of her on the hangar deck just the day before—a still figure in the center of madness, the eye of the storm. The crewmembers moved around her, but not a one of them looked at her.
Forget her mysterious return from the dead—Starbuck doesn’t get ignored. Not ever. And yet there she is. Their eyes meet for a moment across the open hatchway and the bustling corridor. Then she’s running.
Frak.
Lee takes off after her without a moment’s hesitation. He likes to think it’s because she needs him now, but a part of him is terrified that if he doesn’t catch her she’ll slip through his fingers like water. But the halls are busy with shift change, and it’s not like he can ask anyone here she went.
Don’t lose me this time, Apollo.
Forty minutes later he returns to his quarters, exhausted and more frightened than he cares to admit. His hand is heavy on the wheel of the hatch, and he doesn’t look up as he closes it behind him. Which is why he doesn’t see her.
“Hey Apollo.”
There she is, resting against the edge of the desk.
“Kara.” Then, “where did you go?”
She laughs, but it’s not particularly mirthful. “Where did I go? Who the hell knows since I’m apparently a figment of your imagination.”
He takes a step towards her, but frak if his legs aren’t cooperating now. Will his body and his brain ever function properly now that she’s here?
“I went to the hangar bay,” she says, voice surprisingly even. “My Viper’s just sitting there you know, like, like nobody even notices, and…I went inside her. Nobody tried to stop me. I checked the ship’s computer and it’s been wiped clean. Not a single frakking thing. Which makes sense, I guess, since it’s never launched, never flown, never burned a single drop of fuel, and….”
Kara sucks in a breath, presses one hand to her temple. She’s dry-eyed but the hand is shaking.
When Lee pulls her into his arms, she doesn’t resist. “You’re not imaginary.” This is insane, he thinks. No, beyond, as he holds her tighter. He’s comforting a Kara that only he can see—comforting her because she’s having a frakking existensial crisis.
“You’re not imaginary,” he says again, even if he has his doubts. “I couldn’t imagine you, Kara Thrace, not ever. And if I had? This certainly isn’t what we’d be doing in my quarters.”
She laughs then, and it’s better than before but still he doesn’t let go.
~~~
Some time later, when they’re both calm, she asks about Dee. Lee tells her, as simply as he can, that she left.
Kara looks at him for a long while. When she speaks, her voice is low, unhappy. “Because of me?”
It comes as a surprise to both of them when Lee starts to laugh. Kara scowls at this, and he only laughs harder.
“Contrary to popular belief, not everything is about you.”
Kara tries to keep scowling, but her face softens into an almost-smile. “That’d be more convincing, Apollo, if you hadn’t just sprung me from hack and hauled me off to your brand new bachelor pad.” They’re both silent for a moment too long, for when she speaks again that smile is gone. “I thought things were the best they’ve ever been.”
He winces. “That’s…well, it wasn’t a lie, but…things were the best they’d ever been, but not because we—Dee and I—were happy, but because…because we were friends again. You and me. For the first time since New Caprica, we weren’t hating each other. And we weren’t cheating either, and…and for a little while it seemed like maybe we’d be okay. Somehow. Someday.”
“I’m sorry,” Kara says, so softly he almost doesn’t hear it.
“Me too.”
Lee must be a masochist because he chooses this moment—this moment where she’s sitting on his bed, knees bent, looking straight at him and smiling—he chooses this moment to say, “You probably want to know about Sam.”
She bites her lip, the smile fading—doesn’t say anything and just inclines her head in the barest hint of a nod.
“He, uh, was a bit of a mess, you know. Honestly Starbuck, did you train the poor man to be totally dependent on you? Took a dive off a Viper and busted his leg. And apparently was inspired to enlist. He’s in Racetrack’s class of nuggets. Got a callsign and everything.”
Kara doesn’t look pleased to hear any of this, and he has no idea why, but she asks, “A callsign?”
“Yeah, Longshot.”
Kara’s quiet again, so Lee takes this opportunity once again to show off his brilliant masochistic streak. “Do you want to see him?”
“And watch him not see me? No thanks, I’ll pass.”
That’s a relief.
“How’s your father?” she asks.
“Oh, you know, the same. I’m not exactly his favorite person right now.” Lee pauses, wondering if he should say the words on his tongue. “He misses you.”
Judging by the look in her eyes, this is not the most welcome news.
She looks down. “What are we gonna do, Lee?”
It’s easy in this moment to take her hand. She doesn’t resist, so Lee looks at their interlocked fingers, turning her hand over in his. When he glances back up at her face, her gaze is fixed on their hands. He grins and tugs gently. “I thought you said you knew the way.”
“Uh.” Her expression is awkward, embarrassed. It takes a lot to embarrass Kara Thrace.
“Oh Kara,” he says, shaking his head. “You didn’t. Tell me you didn’t.”
“Look, it’s been kind of a stressful day,” she says, pulling her hand from his and twisting around to put her feet on the floor. “I’m sure it’ll come back to me.”
It’s official, Lee thinks. He’s lost his mind. But he still can’t say it. Imaginary or not, he never wants to hurt her again. “Right,” he says because he needs to do something to keep the hysteria at bay. “Well now that you’ve forgotten the way to Earth, just what the frak should we do?”
He wants her to tell him what to do, Lee realizes. If she is a manifestation of his subconscious, isn’t that her job?
~~~
Her job, as it turns out, must be to drive him crazy from the beyond (or whatever in the seven hells is going on). That’s hardly a surprise, and really it’s his job that’s in question. Kara doesn’t tell him what to do in that respect either. He’s not sure if he’s grateful or not.
In the end, maybe it’s not such a difficult decision. Despite his restlessness, his disaffection for command, Lee understands that his goal now is the Earth that Kara spoke of. And he understands, too, that, given their rather unique circumstances, Kara can’t get the Fleet there without him. And what good will he do her in a two-piece suit?
But it’s not really any of these factors that make the decision for him. No, it’s the summons he promptly receives to the wardroom. He quickly dons his blues, not wanting to get thrown in hack for being out of uniform so soon after being liberated. When he turns around, he finds Kara watching him.
“Come on Starbuck, you know it’s rude to stare,” he says as he does up the buttons on his jacket. The collar is bare, since his wings and rank pins are still in the Admiral’s office, awaiting judgment.
“What are you gonna do,” she says as she saunters towards him, “send me to detention?”
“I just might,” he mutters, trying to ignore that smug grin.
“Hell no,” she says, beating him out the hatch. “You’re not leaving me out of this one, Apollo. It’s not like any of them will know that I’m crashing the party.”
He can’t exactly argue with that. And besides, he never could say ‘no’ to her.
When Lee enters the conference room, he finds his father, Laura Roslin, and Colonel Tigh, along with Tory Foster and Karl Agathon. Not to mention the heavily armed marines standing guard over one of those Shelly Godfrey skinjobs.
Lee can’t quite contain his surprise, and he hears Kara echo his noise of shock as he rushes to take his place beside Helo. Kara perches on the table between them, and—frak, does she have to sit that way?
The meeting appears to have started without them. The Cylon—Natalie, she calls herself—has the seat of honor as she faces the fleet’s military and civilian heads and resumes her tale.
Lee’s a little embarrassed at just how much he has, apparently, missed in the last day or so. Natalie explains that there has been dissent amongst the Cylons for some time, and they had begun splitting into two factions. She says that Cavil has been campaigning to “lobotomize” the Raiders.
“One—who you know as Cavil—has long considered himself our leader, though by rights he has no particular claim to the title. Until recently, this made no difference, however, since we lived in unanimous accord. But ever since New Caprica, a split has been developing. The Sixes, Twos, and Eights formed an alliance, and we began to make a contingency plan. We gathered on our own basestar, away from his control. But when he said he was going to lobotomize the Raiders, he turned against his own kind and struck the first blow.”
Lee doesn’t really see what’s so bad about that, but evidently Natalie finds this to be a capital crime. She goes on to say that something strange happened at the nebula—that when the humans and the cylons clashed something changed.
Kara sucks in a breath beside him, and Lee can’t help glancing to her. She’s staring straight at the cylon, but her left hand moves towards him and he doesn’t hesitate in grasping it in his own. This ease, this effortless physicality between the two of them—he’s missed it. When he looks up again, Helo is giving him a strange look, but thankfully remains silent.
Natalie puts Lee and Kara out of their misery though, hurrying to explain. “We don’t know why, but one of the Raiders—thankfully Cavil had not gotten to them yet—chose to retreat. It had one of your Vipers in its sights, but chose to spare your pilot.”
When the Cylon command center had received this signal, Cavil and his followers refused to follow the directive and, upon meeting resistance with their brothers and sisters, had turned the guns of their baseships on their own.
“We barely escaped with our lives,” she says.
So Natalie and her band of self-proclaimed rebels had requested asylum with the Colonial Fleet.
“You want us,” Laura Roslin says, “to take you in? To protect a group of machines responsible for the destruction of billions of people—and to fix your baseship while we’re at it?”
“We understand that this is a lot to ask for,” the Cylon responds, “but we are willing to lay down arms. Our ship can heal itself with time, but our Raiders took heavy losses. Our defenses our weakened. We will submit to your rule.” She pauses, her eyes focusing to the right of the Admiral. “And we can give you information on the Final Five cylons.”
Kara’s attention is focused intently on the proceedings now, and Lee’s would be too if he weren’t distracted by the death grip she has on his hand.
“The Eight. Boomer. She—she was with Cavil, and she saw things. One of the Final Five Cylons resurrected under Cavil’s guard. It’s been a year, and he has kept her secreted away from us. But Boomer, she saw and in the chaos at the nebula, she came to us.”
Kara shakes her head slowly, muttering an oath under her breath.
His father gives the order and another half-dozen marines march one Sharon Valerii, former Lieutenant, into the room. Lee notes with some surprise that she is unbound, except for the heavy threat of all those machine guns pointed her way. Kara moves to stand, and her left hand falls onto his shoulder. On her other side, Lee can tell that Karl Agathon is sitting ramrod straight, and to his credit he is not shying away from Boomer’s gaze.
But none of that matters when the cylon drops her bombshell. She looks the XO in the eyes and tells them what she knows.
“Ellen Tigh.”
Lee wants to say that the room erupts into pandemonium, but it doesn’t really; it’s just that it should. Colonel Tigh stares with his one eye. His father says something low and angry to the man, but Tigh still just stares at Boomer.
Kara whispers, “Damn, never would’ve guessed,” but he hears relief through her incredulity.
President Roslin is the only one still speaking to Boomer, still demanding more information, the identity of the other cylons, the whereabouts of the other basestars, and so on.
But the cylon cannot answer, or does not, and her eyes keep straying to Tigh and Adama, desperately seeking something. Finally, the Admiral calls for a break and has the marines escort the two “guests” to a holding cell.
“Take ten,” he barks out.
As he steps out into the corridor, Lee glimpses his father through the closing hatch, moving to stand before Colonel Tigh, the President at his side.
“Lords, did you see Tigh’s face?” Kara says, calling Lee’s attention back to her as they move to the nearest unoccupied room. “Son of a bitch almost looked happy.”
“Is that so hard to believe, Kara?” Lee shuts the hatch behind them, briefly taking in the storage locker. “She’s his wife.”
“She’s a Cylon.”
“Maybe so, but he still misses her.”
Kara just looks at him evenly before stepping forward to stand just within arms’ reach. “I’m right here, Lee,” she says. She stretches out her right hand between them. “You still flying my wing?”
Lee doesn’t hesitate to take her hand in his own. “I told you, Kara. Whatever it takes. I meant it.”
Chapter Two
pilotsbigbang ! I am absolutely thrilled to be posting this--I have been working on it for ages, and I came close to dropping out of the challenge. It's good to finally be finished.Title: The Breath Between
Author: shah_of_blah
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: All seasons
Warnings: None
Summary: Kara's return in "Crossroads" is not what it appears to be.
Word Count: 4800 this part (16k all)
Author's Notes: Many thanks to my cheerleader,
stripes13 , and my beta, bellaaurora . This fic would have been much worse without their help. Also, I rejected any canon I didn't like. Deal with it.You’re free now.
“I’m not afraid anymore,” Kara says.
“I’ll see you on the other side,” she says.
To become who you really are.
Fear gets you killed; anger keeps you alive. Two sides of the same coin, Momma. The players change but the story remains the same.
To discover what hovers in the space between life and death.
Kara closes her eyes. Her breath leaves her body. And she flies.
It’s a long time before she lands.
~~~
Lee has never been struck by lightning, but he has had the comparable experience of meeting Kara Thrace. Lee didn’t understand what was happening in that moment when she opened the door and he watched her smile change to look on him. But later, in one of his more maudlin moments, he realized that she had come into his life like a lightning strike. With a smile and a handshake, she had irrevocably carved his life in two, and since that moment there was only before and after.
She leaves his life in the same way—sudden, bright and burning—but still that dotted line, that before and after doesn’t waver. Two months later, and maybe he knows why.
~~~
Don’t lose me this time, Apollo.
Not a chance.
When he lands on the hangar deck and climbs out of his cockpit, Lee doesn’t see her impossibly new, impossibly there Viper. He does see her. She’s standing in the middle of the bay, a single point of stillness, of peace, in the chaos of combat landings. While he watches, she runs a hand through her sweat-dampened hair, slicking it back. It’s an action he’s seen her do countless times, but today it is different. Today it is new.
Because she is.
There’s a moment when she turns and just before her gaze meets his—then the moment is caught, stretched taut by the pull of her eyes. He’s not thinking clearly, Lee knows this, and he might just be dreaming because then she’s in his arms and he doesn’t remember how they got from Point A to Point B. It doesn’t really matter though because wayward strands of her hair are tickling his cheek; she is warm in his arms and her words in his ear are more than he’d dare to dream of.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” she says, and it is. “Me too.”
When the marines come, Lee steps in front of her to face them. They’re led by Colonel Tigh, not his father, and Lee can’t think what that means. As they march down to the brig, Lee’s barely aware of the soldiers and their guns around him; their heavy steps are drowned out, it seems, by the soft sounds of her breathing.
When they reach their destination, the marines put them—Lee and Kara, Apollo and Starbuck, or whoever the hell they are—in the same cell.
“You’ll stay here until we’ve got time to deal with this,” Colonel Tigh says, gruff and dismissive.
Lee registers dimly that he doesn’t know the outcome of the battle.
He is not sure how long they are left to wait. His brain doesn’t seem to be working right, as time keeps moving in skips and jumps. He sits on the single cot in their cell and just watches her.
She paces.
“How can they just…?” she mutters as she impatiently sweeps back her too-long hair. “I mean, Earth, godsdamnit! Earth, and they just….”
She’s stopped pacing and Lee belatedly realizes that she’s staring right at him with that familiar half-angry, all-intense “are you even listening?” look.
Then something changes and she is on the cot beside him. He feels her leg brush against his through the rubber of their flightsuits.
“Hey Lee,” she’s saying, “I just wanted to say thanks. You know, for flying my wing.”
Time skips again and he’s on the other side of the cell, on his hands and knees sucking down oxygen like it’s the sweetest ambrosia. Then her hand is on his back and he can’t hear what she’s saying because her hand is on his back.
His father choosees this moment to interrupt.
“Admiral on deck!” shouts the lonely marine on duty.
Lee stands half-heartedly, shifting anxiously on his feet as he remembers that none of his previous roles apply at this moment, except maybe son, which is the worst of all. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Kara standing rigidly to attention. But the “at ease” she’s waiting for doesn’t come.
Instead, the old man just stares at Lee, and Lee stares back, feeling no particular drive to break the silence.
Finally, the Admiral speaks. “You seized a military vessel and endangered both it and yourself by rushing into a battle in which you did not belong. Do you have anything to say for yourself?”
Lee thinks for a moment. “No,” he says, biting back the automatic sir.
Judging by the expression on his father’s face, this is not the correct answer. But when the old man speaks again, his voice swells with weariness.
“We’ve got Cylons inviting themselves aboard wanting to talk, and I do not have time for your misguided rebellion. It’s time to pick a side, Lee,” the old man says. “To figure out who you’re going to be. A civilian or a soldier.”
But Lee is shaking his head, swallowing down his own weariness and his own frustration. “With all due respect, Dad, we both know why I quit. So really, it’s up to you. Do you have anything to say for yourself?”
The old man is silent, and just like that he’s gone. As though on autopilot, Lee settles back onto the cot, leaning against the bulkhead. It takes him a moment too long to realize that Kara is still standing, facing him now with her hands on her hips.
“Lee,” she says, as though speaking to a not-terribly bright student, “what the hell was he talking about?”
He blinks, takes a moment to gather his thoughts and wish his brain were functioning a little better. “Oh, well. After, uh…well I wasn’t…the Admiral assigned me to security detail for Baltar’s lawyer, and so I started getting involved with the trial, and…. He said some things, and I said some things, and I resigned.” Lee shrugs.
She’s still staring. “Lee,” she says again, “what the hell are you talking about?”
He really doesn’t think her indignation is warranted. After all, he’s not the one who came back from the dead after two months, claiming to have seen Earth. Compared to hers, his explanation is practically a dissertation.
“I resigned from the military. Helped out with Baltar’s trial. Not guilty, by the way.”
“Come on, Apollo. Even you can’t do all that in six hours. What the hell is going on here?”
Six hours? What the hell is right, Lee thinks. “Kara, you…you’ve been gone for two months.”
“What? No frakking way, Lee! I know I passed out but my ship clock read six hours.”
He shakes his head back and forth, wishing he could stop the words he knows he has to say. “Kara, you died. You flew into that storm and you – and I saw it, I saw….” He stops because he must, and because the rest doesn’t really matter now, does it? Not when she’s standing here in front of him, with her flightsuit tied around her waist and her hair just brushing her shoulders.
She seems to deflate though, before his very eyes. Like she’s drifting in zero gravity and doesn’t know up from down. They don’t say much after that.
Eventually, she drifts into an uneasy slumber, stretched out on her side on the cot. Lee sits on the floor by the foot of the bunk. He rests his head back against the bulkhead and keeps his eyes open as long as he can. Maybe he’s afraid that she’ll vanish in the space of a blink, or maybe he just can’t get his fill of her after two months of knowing he’d never have this, never watch her fall asleep and certainly never watch her wake.
The next morning, they still don’t talk much but Kara tells him in halting, stilted words how she flew into the storm driven by some need that she can’t articulate, how she opened her eyes and there was a planet before her and she knew that it was home. And then she was there, in the nebula, flying his wing. Lee hears the rest in her silence, in the soft hitches in her breath; hears how she can’t explain this missing time, and hears how that emptiness could tear her apart.
He doesn’t have time to reassure her (and maybe that’s a blessing, since he doubts that he could) before he’s being summoned to the Admiral’s quarters.
Their marine guard escorts him out of the cell, but only him—evidently Kara’s not invited to this Adama family gathering. As he’s led away, Lee can’t help turning back, fixing her in his sights once more. She stands in the middle of the cell, her face inscrutable as she watches him.
~~~
The meeting with his father does not go well. They stand on opposite sides of the desk, and if that doesn’t symbolize their entire relationship then Lee will hang up his wings. Oh wait, he’s already done that.
“Lee, I know…things haven’t been easy lately. And maybe some days it feels like you’re just getting up in the morning because you don’t know what else to do. And I know that you and I haven’t always seen eye to eye. But I’m proud of you, son. That was a brave thing you did, and maybe…maybe I was too harsh before.”
Lee’s not so far gone that he can’t recognize the significance of this confession, can’t appreciate the difficulty of his father’s apology. But still, none of this feels quite right, quite real; it’s as though half of his reality is behind bars and this office feels dull and dim in comparison.
The old man sighs, rubbing the bridge of his nose with one hand as he speaks. “After what happened at the nebula…things are going to change, one way or another.” He looks up. “We’re going to need the fleet’s best.”
The quiet, unspoken compliment hovers in the air between them, and Lee’s chest expands as he breathes it in. Yet, when the old man offers his post back, Lee says that he’ll think about it. It’s the best that he can do right now. Because this, this is ridiculous and when Adama offers Lee a drink, he can’t keep it in anymore.
“What the hell are we doing here, Dad? I mean, she’s, she said she’s been to Earth and you’re not even, not even going to ask?”
Adama stares at him, much the same way Kara did the night before when he told her about resigning his commission.
“Lee,” he says slowly, “who are you talking about? Who’s been to Earth?”
Has this whole Fleet gone mad? “Who? Who, I—weren’t you listening on the comms?”
“Listening to what?”
“To Kara, Dad!”
His father pales, steps back as though shoved. With a slightly sick feeling, Lee registers the look of pure, unadulterated shock on his father’s face.
“Lee, are you alright?”
No, he thinks. But he can’t say it. He has to get back to the brig. “Am I free to go, sir?”
His father nods, and looks like he wants to say more but Lee turns away. He returns to the brig unescorted. The marine on duty looks surprised to see him, but Lee makes some excuse about forgetting something in the cell. As the marine goes to unlock it, Lee’s eyes find Kara. She’s stretched out on her back on the cot, and her eyes are closed but he knows she’s not sleeping. He almost wishes she were doing push-ups just so he could make some crack about this looking familiar.
Soon he’s through the bars though, and she’s sitting up, about to say something when he wraps his fingers around her wrist. “Come on,” he says softly, hoping that lone guard isn’t paying too much attention. But Lee’s got a theory to prove.
Something in his eyes must convince her, because Kara doesn’t say a word as he leads her out of the cell. She looks back at the guard but he doesn’t look at them, and that sick feeling in Lee’s gut returns. Once they’re a few halls away from the brig, Kara pulls her arm out of his grasp and makes her impatience known.
“Lee, what did he say? Does he believe me?”
He just shakes his head and keeps moving forward. “Later,” he whispers.
She snorts. “Later? Where the frak are we going now, Lee?”
He pauses then, and looks at her. A few crewmembers pass, but pay no attention. Of course they don’t. He wants to reach out and touch her, but doesn’t, remembering the way she’d gently but firmly tugged her hand from his. Still, he smiles.
“Earth,” he tells her. “Or have you forgotten the way?”
~~~
It was wishful thinking that she would forget her questions when they reached his quarters. As soon as the hatch is closed, she’s demanding to know what’s going on, what the Admiral said, if she’s…. Through the frustration, he catches a hint of genuine fear, almost desperation, in her voice.
He knows what he has to say won’t ease her fear. Far from it. He closes his eyes because it’s easier if he doesn’t see her right now.
“My father didn’t mention you at all. Not until I did. He didn’t know what I was talking about. The marines on the flight deck weren’t there for you; they came for me because I stole military property. And, and they put us in the same cell.” He opens his eyes now because he has to; he can’t leave her alone in this.
“When I was gone, did the guard talk to you?” he asks. “Look at you?”
Her eyes are wide and something in her looks brittle as she shakes her head.
“And when we were walking through the halls, did anyone look at you the way they would look at—at someone who came back from the dead?”
“No,” she whispers.
“No,” he says, “they didn’t even see you.”
“No,” she says, “no, that’s impossible. That’s—it doesn’t make any sense, Lee.”
Lee can’t argue with her. It is impossible and it doesn’t make sense. But that’s Kara for you. At his silence, she just shakes her head and turns away from him. He takes a step towards her, but before he can reach her she’s in motion, opening the hatch and dashing out into the corridor.
When Lee steps into the open hatch, he sees her poised in the center of the hall. He’s struck again with the image of her on the hangar deck just the day before—a still figure in the center of madness, the eye of the storm. The crewmembers moved around her, but not a one of them looked at her.
Forget her mysterious return from the dead—Starbuck doesn’t get ignored. Not ever. And yet there she is. Their eyes meet for a moment across the open hatchway and the bustling corridor. Then she’s running.
Frak.
Lee takes off after her without a moment’s hesitation. He likes to think it’s because she needs him now, but a part of him is terrified that if he doesn’t catch her she’ll slip through his fingers like water. But the halls are busy with shift change, and it’s not like he can ask anyone here she went.
Don’t lose me this time, Apollo.
Forty minutes later he returns to his quarters, exhausted and more frightened than he cares to admit. His hand is heavy on the wheel of the hatch, and he doesn’t look up as he closes it behind him. Which is why he doesn’t see her.
“Hey Apollo.”
There she is, resting against the edge of the desk.
“Kara.” Then, “where did you go?”
She laughs, but it’s not particularly mirthful. “Where did I go? Who the hell knows since I’m apparently a figment of your imagination.”
He takes a step towards her, but frak if his legs aren’t cooperating now. Will his body and his brain ever function properly now that she’s here?
“I went to the hangar bay,” she says, voice surprisingly even. “My Viper’s just sitting there you know, like, like nobody even notices, and…I went inside her. Nobody tried to stop me. I checked the ship’s computer and it’s been wiped clean. Not a single frakking thing. Which makes sense, I guess, since it’s never launched, never flown, never burned a single drop of fuel, and….”
Kara sucks in a breath, presses one hand to her temple. She’s dry-eyed but the hand is shaking.
When Lee pulls her into his arms, she doesn’t resist. “You’re not imaginary.” This is insane, he thinks. No, beyond, as he holds her tighter. He’s comforting a Kara that only he can see—comforting her because she’s having a frakking existensial crisis.
“You’re not imaginary,” he says again, even if he has his doubts. “I couldn’t imagine you, Kara Thrace, not ever. And if I had? This certainly isn’t what we’d be doing in my quarters.”
She laughs then, and it’s better than before but still he doesn’t let go.
~~~
Some time later, when they’re both calm, she asks about Dee. Lee tells her, as simply as he can, that she left.
Kara looks at him for a long while. When she speaks, her voice is low, unhappy. “Because of me?”
It comes as a surprise to both of them when Lee starts to laugh. Kara scowls at this, and he only laughs harder.
“Contrary to popular belief, not everything is about you.”
Kara tries to keep scowling, but her face softens into an almost-smile. “That’d be more convincing, Apollo, if you hadn’t just sprung me from hack and hauled me off to your brand new bachelor pad.” They’re both silent for a moment too long, for when she speaks again that smile is gone. “I thought things were the best they’ve ever been.”
He winces. “That’s…well, it wasn’t a lie, but…things were the best they’d ever been, but not because we—Dee and I—were happy, but because…because we were friends again. You and me. For the first time since New Caprica, we weren’t hating each other. And we weren’t cheating either, and…and for a little while it seemed like maybe we’d be okay. Somehow. Someday.”
“I’m sorry,” Kara says, so softly he almost doesn’t hear it.
“Me too.”
Lee must be a masochist because he chooses this moment—this moment where she’s sitting on his bed, knees bent, looking straight at him and smiling—he chooses this moment to say, “You probably want to know about Sam.”
She bites her lip, the smile fading—doesn’t say anything and just inclines her head in the barest hint of a nod.
“He, uh, was a bit of a mess, you know. Honestly Starbuck, did you train the poor man to be totally dependent on you? Took a dive off a Viper and busted his leg. And apparently was inspired to enlist. He’s in Racetrack’s class of nuggets. Got a callsign and everything.”
Kara doesn’t look pleased to hear any of this, and he has no idea why, but she asks, “A callsign?”
“Yeah, Longshot.”
Kara’s quiet again, so Lee takes this opportunity once again to show off his brilliant masochistic streak. “Do you want to see him?”
“And watch him not see me? No thanks, I’ll pass.”
That’s a relief.
“How’s your father?” she asks.
“Oh, you know, the same. I’m not exactly his favorite person right now.” Lee pauses, wondering if he should say the words on his tongue. “He misses you.”
Judging by the look in her eyes, this is not the most welcome news.
She looks down. “What are we gonna do, Lee?”
It’s easy in this moment to take her hand. She doesn’t resist, so Lee looks at their interlocked fingers, turning her hand over in his. When he glances back up at her face, her gaze is fixed on their hands. He grins and tugs gently. “I thought you said you knew the way.”
“Uh.” Her expression is awkward, embarrassed. It takes a lot to embarrass Kara Thrace.
“Oh Kara,” he says, shaking his head. “You didn’t. Tell me you didn’t.”
“Look, it’s been kind of a stressful day,” she says, pulling her hand from his and twisting around to put her feet on the floor. “I’m sure it’ll come back to me.”
It’s official, Lee thinks. He’s lost his mind. But he still can’t say it. Imaginary or not, he never wants to hurt her again. “Right,” he says because he needs to do something to keep the hysteria at bay. “Well now that you’ve forgotten the way to Earth, just what the frak should we do?”
He wants her to tell him what to do, Lee realizes. If she is a manifestation of his subconscious, isn’t that her job?
~~~
Her job, as it turns out, must be to drive him crazy from the beyond (or whatever in the seven hells is going on). That’s hardly a surprise, and really it’s his job that’s in question. Kara doesn’t tell him what to do in that respect either. He’s not sure if he’s grateful or not.
In the end, maybe it’s not such a difficult decision. Despite his restlessness, his disaffection for command, Lee understands that his goal now is the Earth that Kara spoke of. And he understands, too, that, given their rather unique circumstances, Kara can’t get the Fleet there without him. And what good will he do her in a two-piece suit?
But it’s not really any of these factors that make the decision for him. No, it’s the summons he promptly receives to the wardroom. He quickly dons his blues, not wanting to get thrown in hack for being out of uniform so soon after being liberated. When he turns around, he finds Kara watching him.
“Come on Starbuck, you know it’s rude to stare,” he says as he does up the buttons on his jacket. The collar is bare, since his wings and rank pins are still in the Admiral’s office, awaiting judgment.
“What are you gonna do,” she says as she saunters towards him, “send me to detention?”
“I just might,” he mutters, trying to ignore that smug grin.
“Hell no,” she says, beating him out the hatch. “You’re not leaving me out of this one, Apollo. It’s not like any of them will know that I’m crashing the party.”
He can’t exactly argue with that. And besides, he never could say ‘no’ to her.
When Lee enters the conference room, he finds his father, Laura Roslin, and Colonel Tigh, along with Tory Foster and Karl Agathon. Not to mention the heavily armed marines standing guard over one of those Shelly Godfrey skinjobs.
Lee can’t quite contain his surprise, and he hears Kara echo his noise of shock as he rushes to take his place beside Helo. Kara perches on the table between them, and—frak, does she have to sit that way?
The meeting appears to have started without them. The Cylon—Natalie, she calls herself—has the seat of honor as she faces the fleet’s military and civilian heads and resumes her tale.
Lee’s a little embarrassed at just how much he has, apparently, missed in the last day or so. Natalie explains that there has been dissent amongst the Cylons for some time, and they had begun splitting into two factions. She says that Cavil has been campaigning to “lobotomize” the Raiders.
“One—who you know as Cavil—has long considered himself our leader, though by rights he has no particular claim to the title. Until recently, this made no difference, however, since we lived in unanimous accord. But ever since New Caprica, a split has been developing. The Sixes, Twos, and Eights formed an alliance, and we began to make a contingency plan. We gathered on our own basestar, away from his control. But when he said he was going to lobotomize the Raiders, he turned against his own kind and struck the first blow.”
Lee doesn’t really see what’s so bad about that, but evidently Natalie finds this to be a capital crime. She goes on to say that something strange happened at the nebula—that when the humans and the cylons clashed something changed.
Kara sucks in a breath beside him, and Lee can’t help glancing to her. She’s staring straight at the cylon, but her left hand moves towards him and he doesn’t hesitate in grasping it in his own. This ease, this effortless physicality between the two of them—he’s missed it. When he looks up again, Helo is giving him a strange look, but thankfully remains silent.
Natalie puts Lee and Kara out of their misery though, hurrying to explain. “We don’t know why, but one of the Raiders—thankfully Cavil had not gotten to them yet—chose to retreat. It had one of your Vipers in its sights, but chose to spare your pilot.”
When the Cylon command center had received this signal, Cavil and his followers refused to follow the directive and, upon meeting resistance with their brothers and sisters, had turned the guns of their baseships on their own.
“We barely escaped with our lives,” she says.
So Natalie and her band of self-proclaimed rebels had requested asylum with the Colonial Fleet.
“You want us,” Laura Roslin says, “to take you in? To protect a group of machines responsible for the destruction of billions of people—and to fix your baseship while we’re at it?”
“We understand that this is a lot to ask for,” the Cylon responds, “but we are willing to lay down arms. Our ship can heal itself with time, but our Raiders took heavy losses. Our defenses our weakened. We will submit to your rule.” She pauses, her eyes focusing to the right of the Admiral. “And we can give you information on the Final Five cylons.”
Kara’s attention is focused intently on the proceedings now, and Lee’s would be too if he weren’t distracted by the death grip she has on his hand.
“The Eight. Boomer. She—she was with Cavil, and she saw things. One of the Final Five Cylons resurrected under Cavil’s guard. It’s been a year, and he has kept her secreted away from us. But Boomer, she saw and in the chaos at the nebula, she came to us.”
Kara shakes her head slowly, muttering an oath under her breath.
His father gives the order and another half-dozen marines march one Sharon Valerii, former Lieutenant, into the room. Lee notes with some surprise that she is unbound, except for the heavy threat of all those machine guns pointed her way. Kara moves to stand, and her left hand falls onto his shoulder. On her other side, Lee can tell that Karl Agathon is sitting ramrod straight, and to his credit he is not shying away from Boomer’s gaze.
But none of that matters when the cylon drops her bombshell. She looks the XO in the eyes and tells them what she knows.
“Ellen Tigh.”
Lee wants to say that the room erupts into pandemonium, but it doesn’t really; it’s just that it should. Colonel Tigh stares with his one eye. His father says something low and angry to the man, but Tigh still just stares at Boomer.
Kara whispers, “Damn, never would’ve guessed,” but he hears relief through her incredulity.
President Roslin is the only one still speaking to Boomer, still demanding more information, the identity of the other cylons, the whereabouts of the other basestars, and so on.
But the cylon cannot answer, or does not, and her eyes keep straying to Tigh and Adama, desperately seeking something. Finally, the Admiral calls for a break and has the marines escort the two “guests” to a holding cell.
“Take ten,” he barks out.
As he steps out into the corridor, Lee glimpses his father through the closing hatch, moving to stand before Colonel Tigh, the President at his side.
“Lords, did you see Tigh’s face?” Kara says, calling Lee’s attention back to her as they move to the nearest unoccupied room. “Son of a bitch almost looked happy.”
“Is that so hard to believe, Kara?” Lee shuts the hatch behind them, briefly taking in the storage locker. “She’s his wife.”
“She’s a Cylon.”
“Maybe so, but he still misses her.”
Kara just looks at him evenly before stepping forward to stand just within arms’ reach. “I’m right here, Lee,” she says. She stretches out her right hand between them. “You still flying my wing?”
Lee doesn’t hesitate to take her hand in his own. “I told you, Kara. Whatever it takes. I meant it.”
Chapter Two
