Title: The Cup
Summary: After the events of Scar, Kat doesn't feel right keeping the cup and goes to give it back to Starbuck. Realizing her favorite flight instructor has been acting weird lately, Kat pushes her for answers as to why and Kara answers.
Author's Notes: I own nothing, I just always thought there was more to these two than they showed us so I wrote this. It never happened, is total AU but I wanted to write it anyway. I wanted them to be closer, like sisters or something, and so yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Spoiler Warning: Anything up to Scar also to Lee meeting Kara and the events surrounding that incident.
The party was going on without her in the rec room, but Kat really didn't care. The cup felt heavy in her hand and she knew after Starbuck had left there was something wrong. She knew her flight instructor and if she was being honest, one of the people she deep down respected the most. Something was different, ever since Pegasus, no before that, ever since she went back to Caprica she'd been different, more depressed, not as likely to laugh. Her attitude had been darker, increasingly more negative and any idiot could see Apollo was worried out of his mind for her, but instead of playing along she'd been downright mean.
Louanne supposed going back to a place you called home and seeing it totally nuked beyond oblivion must be hard. But it couldn't be what had the Ace Pilot acting this way. Even Apollo seemed to be keeping his distance, something having happened between them, and when even Apollo was being shut out, things were ugly. They had to be ugly, they were a team, it was not just Starbuck or just Apollo it was Starbuck&Apollo.
She walked by the gym just in time to Helo, a pilot who if not for his taste in toasters she may have gotten along better with than the civil conversation exiting the room, looking tired. She knew she had come to the right place, Helo was Kara's friend and she defended him to death, there was mutual understanding between them.
"Have you seen-"Kat started, unsure how to broach the topic with Helo. Sure the two were friends and obviously went way back. Maybe he would understand what Kat was hopefully trying to do here, even though she knew there were some things she should have done differently, really thinking about how she had been acting lately made her realize, her one steady constant was starting to flicker. Kat had done her fair share of that, getting so caught up in her own quest she pushed her down as hard as she could. And as much as Kat hated to admit it, to herself even, the security of Starbuck behaving like Starbuck was something she needed in her life, desperately.
"She's in there doing weights last I saw, or she is playing with that pyramid ball of her's." Helo answered, not even needing an explanation as to what she was doing, nodding her head in thanks her hand reached for the hatch only to have her way suddenly occupied by the large man.
"I'm not going to let you in there if you are going to wave that in her face." He said looking down and gesturing at the cup in her hand. "She is going through a rough patch, hell, she always seems to have a rough patch, but this one is big and rougher than I've seen in a long time. You don't need to go in there blazing and make her feel like crap." he said defensively, and Kat silently wondered if he'd ever had a thing for Starbuck at some point that turned into a friendship.
"I'm not going to!" she argued back full force her tone biting and taken on the tone it took while she was fighting raiders. It was the only thing she had found often worked with people. "Look, she deserves this more than me and I came to give it back to her because it should be her's. It always will be her's. I shot one damn raider after he got set up for me, any idiot could have made that shot, she effectively killed him." Helo just nodded and even though Kat knew she was a pretty good pilot she would never quite measure up. That kill could have been her's very easily and yet, she hadn't done it. She'd given the glory to Kat. She wanted to know why, and explain this to her. Kat was not adding in the fact that she was going to see what was wrong with her role-model, but Helo seemed to understand everything anyway.
"Good luck convincing her of that, and anything else, you're on your own." And with that he was gone, walking down the hallways down toward the head with a fast pace that seemed to make him come and go so quickly, probably to shower. She waited until the slightly limping man was out of sight than turned back to the hatch. It was now or never.
Kat took a deep breath before she opened the hatch, and took in what she saw. Starbuck's back was turned to her and she was bouncing a black and red pryamid ball, Caprican colors, against the wall from a distance, it bounced hit the wall, bounced back, catch. It was rhythmatic in sound, perfect precision. She had heard the rumor Starbuck would have gone pro if not for something to do with a knee. She had never believed it but come to think of it she'd never seen her play, and if the bouncing ball was any indication, she was good.
"Starbuck?" Kat called and she sounded much younger. She sounded like she did when she was a nugget, back when she had first gotten aboard Galatica and her instructor first walked in, than proceeded to yell at them. She'd never forget that day, realizing she had to earn her right to call her Starbuck instead of God.
The blonde turned and glared at Kat, her green eyes narrowing and instantly suspecting a trick. Or a dare the other pilots had forced Kat to do, or some combination of all of the above. "What the hell do you want Katraine?" Using her full real name deliberately to annoy her, Starbuck had been pure spite lately, but underneath she knew it was more than the Starbuck glamour. There was something wrong, and Kat was determined to find out what it was.
Kat kept her face traid straight, and Starbuck proceeded to do the same, her hackles up, and posed for a fight. Well she wasn't going to get one, Kat did not need to get in trouble for striking a Superior officer.
But it's not me she's angry at. Kat observed, and than stuck her hand with the cup out awkwardly toward the fellow pilot. "This is yours." She hoped the woman would take it, it was hard enough convincing herself she needed to come down here, it was so much easier to just blow it all off and pretend nothing was wrong. Yeah right, because when Apollo is getting glared at and pushed out of her way there is something wrong.
She had not even drawn a breath after speaking before Starbuck snapped back, "Correction. It used to be mine, but than we made a bet and you won. So it belongs to you. Now frack off." And turned her back on her and went back to bouncing the pyramid ball against the wall, completely ignoring Kat and tell her in unsaid terms to go away.
"No it's not." She walked right infront of the stubborn woman and caught the pyramid ball and proceeded to shove the cup in her free hand.
Bad move number one. In seconds Starbuck was on her feet and Kat wasn't, her knees brought out from under her by a well placed kick and the pyramid ball snatched back, she glared down at the fallen student, like a starving person would if you tried to take away their food. But she didn't give back the cup, if only because she was thinking of it's possible use as a weapon to smack Kat with on the head.
Seeming to change her mind, she moved to stalk off somewhere else but Kat was on her feet and blocking the closed hatchway, knowing very well her against and enraged and angry Starbuck was not going to end pretty. Never stopped her before, wouldn't stop her now, she needed the old Starbuck back, everyone needed her back, like it or not.
"Move. And that's an order Lieutenant." She hissed, pure Starbuck vile seeping out of her every pore. She even brought rank into it just to add in extra seriousness and make her move. But Kat wasn't going to, not until Starbuck was back to being Starbuck.
"Not until you fix whatever's wrong with you." She snapped in response. If she had to play dirty fine, she'd play dirty. But the fleet needed her, Kat needed her, how could she not understand that? How could she not understand the worried glances Apollo'd been giving her, Helo warning people to leave her alone, the old man asking her if she needed to talk the other day? How could she not see if that many people were trying to help her than maybe they had good intentions?
"There is nothing wrong with me!" Starbuck broke and yelled in frustration and seeming to get some serious thoughts about throwing the cup Kat had just given her, right back at her face and probably breaking her nose. Kat stood her ground, backing down gave no one an advantage, and she had not given up a good party just to be screamed at.
"Like hell." she growled back, not budging an inch and keeping her face triad blank.
"There is something wrong. You aren't acting right since Caprica. When Apollo acts like he is walking on eggshells, you take every turn to antagonize him and he looks like you shot his dog every time you do there is something wrong! There is something wrong when you leave a party like the one in the rec room! There is something wrong when Helo stops me at the door and tells me to leave you alone because you aren't in the mood! So you are not leaving until you tell me what the hell is wrong with you!" She started out fine but ended screaming in her superiors face right back at her. Kat wanted to shake her, she didn't know Starbuck very well but she thought she knew enough.
Starbuck went dangerously still and Kat wonders if she really has gone too far this time or if she hit the bullseye. She normally knows when to stop, but she had just been holding that back for so long, it felt good to just let it all out.
"The old man put you up to this didn't he?" she asked quietly, holding her gaze looking for a bluff, while Kat shook her head, her dark hair bouncing around despite it's tight braid. "Lee?" Starbuck guessed again and it took a moment for Kat to realize she meant Apollo. She shook her head back and forth again.
"No, I'm here all by myself." she said quietly and caused the woman to turn around and go back to her chair, ignoring Kat again. She was wondering why, and Kat wondered too, but hey, this was important. Starbuck was there in body but her good side had been repressed in spirit. The dark part of her came out, and they needed the one who would still Apollo's helmet and hide it making him late for CAP, someone tom steal Tigh's ambrosia.
No one had ever said this would be easy. It was Starbuck, it was never going to be simple, or easy, or drama free. But Kat wasn't going to quit, not until she went back to being her old self.
"Talk to me." Kat pleaded softly, trying a tactic that had worked with her sisters back on Picon and would hopefully work with Starbuck even though they ere not blood related and hadn't known each other very long and seemed to butt heads at every turn. She had been taking on so much blame, and Kat had her hand in that mess, she had shoved some of the viper deaths on the blonde herself. She'd been a pain, and never stopped to consider that she was only making more problems for the Pegasus CAG.
Her voice spoke softly Kat had to move a bit closer to catch her words "Lee hates me. The old man is still mad at me. Everyone thinks I'm losing it, and I failed the one relationship I hadn't managed to screw up so far. Happy now?" she tilted her head at the fellow pilot who was standing before her, trying to disgust this information. Hazel eyes dared Kat to challenge her and Kat didn't know what to say, she was wrong, the old man loved her, Lee loved her too, what was she saying?
"You can't really screw it up when the guy's probably dead anyway but it was worth a try." Starbuck added as an afterthought, more thinking out loud to herself than talking to Kat.
"Apollo is concerned about you, he doesn't hate you." Kat started, but she was cut off again by the older woman, who seemed to have finally found escape from whatever reservations she may have had, and was fully content to dump it all on her. This better be worth the party in the rec room.
"Yes he does. He doesn't act like it but he does. Ever since frakking colonial day. And if you say one word of what I say next for any kind of gossip consider yourself air locked. It all started when he made some stupid joke about me not having hygiene. So at that stupid Cloud Nine party I got a dress, make-up, heels, everything. Just to prove him wrong. And instead of saying anything he makes some stupid comment and finally I drag him on the dance floor and get him to dance with me. The first thing he does is hand me off to the new crazy Vice President Gais Frakking Baltar. I don't have an idea where he runs off, but here I am stuck with the new Vice President. So in true screw-up fashion I get drunk and me and the vice president have a one night stand."
Kat's entire attention was absorbed in the story, knowing Starbuck would not share this to just anyone and was happy to be shared with. Maybe they would get to the root of the problem. Because a one-night stand with a lunatic was surely not what had her so wound up, though it might explain Apollo's behavior at the time, he was jealous.
"So later when I'm working on the raider trying to forget my wingman let me down and I went to all that trouble to look nice for him but instead he ditches me, he starts yelling at me and says I'm just a pilot who can't keep her pants on. So when the President asked me to go get the Raider down to Caprica I go. The old man is pissed at me anyways." she continues on, undaunted by the fact things people had speculated on was closer than she would probably care to admit.
"Why?" Kat interrupts but is silenced by a glare. This is Starbuck's story, and she hates being interrupted. Kat had learned that day one, actually in the first 45 minutes of viper training. She wisely shut her mouth and sat down on the floor cross-legged. She had a feeling she would be here a while. She was trying to make up for being such a pain, maybe it would work.
"So I get to Caprica fine, end up at Delphi museum, blonde bitchy skin-job attacks me for arrow, skin job loses because she falls down a two story building. Than Helo and the other Sharon show up. Helo won't let me shoot her and the bitch goes and steals my ride, So, we wander around, find my old apartment, grab some stuff including guns, ammo and my car. And we head north out of the city, trying to lay-low in a former army vehicle."
Privately, Kat thinks Starbuck is one of the few people who would have guns and ammo in her apartment and car. And this car was probably something that stood out. Knowing Starbuck it was probably a yes, Starbuck was not easily ignored. Starbuck had paused and that meant Kat needed to push. She had learned too much and was finally getting to what the almighty Starbuck was so hung up on.
Forgetting the no talking rule entirely on purpose, she asked, "What happened next?" not normally one for paying attention but this, this had to be a frakking exception right?
"Me and Helo got ambushed. We thought they were skin-jobs at first, but they weren't. They were the Caprica Buccaneers, you know the pyramid team, they turned themselves into a resistance, and the resistance leader's name is Samuel T. Anders." Something in her voice changed when she said his name, and Kat knew instantly, this was why she was acting different. She was, as clichéd as it sounded, Kat thought she was in love. She sounded like her older sister had when she talked about her husband who any fools could see were madly in love. Starbuck was in love, or thought she was with this Anders guy, so what about...
Starbuck started talking again and Kat's thought drifted off, just listening to something that sound personal. "He took us back to base camp, which was a hell of a lot better than the run. Food, anti-rad meds, more guns. He agreed to help us get a heavy raider, and high tail it back to Kobol.
"So we attack and air base, but we get ambushed, again. I get shot and wake up in some hospital with some annoying Doctor. Doctor said Sam died on the table and he couldn't be saved, He kept knocking me out, running weird tests. One day another scar appeared and he said it was because there was internal bleeding. But there wasn't, he was lying. He had taken one of my ovaries or something, he'd effectively raped me." Her voice was blank and that told Kat it was pretty bad. Starbuck was a very good story-teller, her voice changing with the story, going up and down for effects, it being blank gave Kat a clue that she had hated it. She was trying to keep it together, and Kat suspected Lee didn't know, she'd seen him ask what was up with the scars but she'd shrugged him off with a 'wouldn't you like to know?' He made her see Cottle but than dropped it, now Kat knew what they were.
"Eventually he slipped up and called me my callsign which I never told him. I killed him, stole his keys and head down the hall. You know cylons can't make a new skin job very easy, so they decided to cheat and make human women do it for them. They had an entire room full of them attached to some kind of machine, barely alive, being used as incubators to try and make a hybrid kid."
Kat was horrified, the little gasp proved it, and quite frankly sorry she had pushed the issue. That was hell, enough to screw with anyone's head as a horror movie. Kat would be some kind of blithering mess after that, a fact Starbuck seemed to know and take comfort or enjoyment, possibly both, in.
For dramatic effect or just to catch her breath Starbuck paused, than continued. "They had one of the resistance fighters there too, she asked me," the great Starbuck's voice wavered a bit before she continued. "She asked me to kill her. So I cut the power, and even in the middle of the day all the lights go out. Everyone on the machines goes to a better place so I start to limp down the hall, my side hurts like hell and there is another blonde bitch in my way. Bang her on the head so she goes bye-bye, and get confronted by doctor again. Before he can do anything there's Sam, and Helo, shooting him and toasters up. The good Sharon has a heavy raider we all ride off in, and back to base. And than to Kobol.
"Sam gives me the arrow back he hid for safe-keeping, I promise to come back and he says he'll hold me to it. I gave him one of my dog tags, I will go back somehow." She said, trying to reassure herself as much as Kat on that front. Kat knows the dog tag is a very big deal. She just nods along, not quite sure if this is what she had been expecting. It's not quite a party in the rec room but it's more important, it has been what has been the issue lately. Another guy, no one had thought that.
A part of her makes her realize that Starbuck is not God, no matter what she seemed like to Kat or introduced herself as for flight instruction. This only proves it, the loss in her tone, the self assurance, horror at what the cylons did to her and are still doing. She can't stop it, there was nothing Starbuck could do. She could just be Starbuck that Kat needed, because Kat knew she needed her. She gave the woman a hard time, got on her nerves, annoyed the hell out of her, and yet, Kat didn't know how to handle it if she went out there one day and didn't come back. She looked to be trying so hard to take her spot, but in reality she didn't want it.
"So I get on the Astral Queen and the first thing that Adama bastard does is kiss me like nothing happened. Like he didn't basically call me a whore. He later asks to talk if I need to and says he loves me. I don't have any idea what to do so I tease him to get him to go away, but it doesn't make him stop, he keeps being nice to me and acting like he cares and is all concerned. To put the icing on the damn cake the other day we were drinking, have some conversation about how bright shiny features are over-rated and than we ended up kissing and," Starbuck paused, unsure whether to go on. Kat gives her a nod of encouragement, still bewildered at the fact she hasn't been sent out on her ass with duct-tape stuck forever on her mouth to keep her from saying a word yet.
Maybe she just needs someone to listen. Kat thought absentmindedly. Helo had been a no because of Sharon, Lee was a problem the old man was apparently mad at her and that left, no one. So really, pushing the issue and becoming that someone may or may not have been a wise move. At least she understood more of what made Starbuck tick. And maybe it was enough for the top gun to realize Kat wasn't just a pain in the ass who'd turned to stims because she couldn't keep up.
"I told him to stop. I ended it. He got defensive and I said there was nothing going on, nothing at all but he wouldn't believe me, I am hung up on a dead guy and he won't understand. He goes and throws the fact I seem to be fine with the dead guys and it's the living ones I have a problem with. He went and threw Zak right back in my face and I couldn't deal with it, I hit him for it". When she said the name Zak Starbuck dropped her eyes and her voice had slightly cracked.
So that was there that mark on Apollo's face had come from. She had remembered gossiping with other pilots as to where it had come from and if indeed Starbuck was to be blamed, but it was all speculation. Nothing more than that, now she knew the truth. "Wait," Kat speaks up, for the first time since glared at to shut her mouth, "Whos's Zak?" she had never heard the name before. No one had ever said it, she had never heard anyone mention it, maybe they had in passing but never to reference a person, he couldn't be some pilot who died fighting cylons. No, he had to be someone else.
"Zak was my fiancée."' Starbuck begin quietly, and Kat found it hard to believe. Starbuck and getting married did not seem to go together. She'd always be a soldier to Kat, not someone who cooked, wore a white dress on her wedding day and packed a kid's lunch for school. "He was taking flight and I was his instructor. He asked me out on a bet he'd made with a friend and I said yes. He was everything I'd ever wanted, he loved me and I loved him. Our relationship was against the rules, but it didn't matter. He was going to graduate, we moved in together and one day his older brother came to town on shore leave to visit.
"That was when I first met Lee." It took Kat a moment to process, Lee had a little brother, the commander had another son. He was the picture of the man Starbuck was leaning into in her locker. Kat's found it when as a dare among her fellow nuggets she'd snooped through her instructor's locker, she never took anything, just looked through it. She turned her attention back to Starbuck as her voice contained quietly. "Zak was Lee's little brother and it's hard to think the two are, were, related. Zak was so different than Lee, more fun, louder, more of a rule-bender. He proposed in the middle of a crowded restaurant, and I loved him for it." she stopped talking at all than, and Kat knew she had to push again.
"Did he die in the attack?" Kat gently prodded, the blonde having gone still as if she wasn't sure whether to keep going or not.
Starbuck slowly shook her head. Her voice picked up again, blank like when she was talking about the farms, like a kid reciting verses at church, not because they enjoyed it but because they were expected to. "When it was eval time he was right on the border. Books say to round down, but he was right on the line between pass and fail, he wanted it so bad, he kept saying how proud his dad was going to be and his older brother, and I couldn't crush him. I cared too much to break his heart, so I passed him.
"He crashed his viper. After a while his viper crashed and it was all my fault. He never should have been in that plane. I killed the first man to ever love me, and it was all my fracking fault." Starbuck shook her head sadly and seemed to be holding in tears. Kat was suddenly sorry she had forced her to confront all of this. She didn't know what to do, Starbuck seemed so human now. Starbuck as a war goddess fighting, that was what Kat had learned to respond too. Not this person who was wishing she had done something different.
Suddenly it all made sense to the young pilot. Why she had first tried to flunk them at first when they screwed up. She didn't want them to die like Zak had, Kat knew it was war and it was crazy, but at the same time, she thought she knew what she was going through.
"Is that why you said the old man hated you?" Kat asked softly, trying to keep her talking. She knew they had always been close, but she noticed a measured closeness, and now it all made sense. It was more than ditching him for the President, it was even if the old man's son had been failed by her, some higher up would have changed it so he passed. Couldn't have him flunking, Kat realized with a start, there were some things she truly didn't understand about the military, even now. And yet, it was so much easier to pin it on Starbuck, she was here, she would take the blame and clearly did.
Starbuck nodded and went back to bouncing the pyramid ball against the wall. The very same one Sam would have probably given her, looking lost in thought. Kat didn't know what to say now, she had her answers, but it seemed a much farther way to getting her back to normal.
"I won't say a word." Kat answered softly, making Starbuck seem to remember she was there. Kat now knew what was going on, and her actions made sense to her now. All the pieces fell in place and Kat understood her more now. They would still clash, bicker and fight, but in the end Kat would see she was more than just a face, she had thoughts, feelings, dreams taken away, it made her a person in Kat's mind. And now she felt guilty for her actions the past couple days, some she didn't regret, others she did.
"You better." Starbuck warned and looked lost in thought for a moment before an evil looking grin appeared on her face. Her heart wasn't in it, not really, but it was there all the same, and anyone had a reason to be nervous when she was grinning like that.
"There is one thing you can tell. You see there happens to be this betting pool I am excluded from by Apollo. So you can go get it because I'll tell you how he got his call sign. Provided I get some loot of course."
Call-signs were special, there was one going to find out Starbuck's, but she kept grinning and saying 'You had to be there,' which of course none of them had been. It did not stop them from trying, and it became apparent no one knew. There was a large betting pool on Apollo's, with things in it like candy. There also was another on when and where they would get together and finally frack each other but that was neither here nor there.
"I get candy, but anyways, here is how the whole story goes. So Apollo had this female instructor, and she apparently really respected his Dad. Like worship respect him. Used the Old man as a reference for Zeus once and of course he flight instructor was there. The instructor and his classmates called him Apollo and the name stuck on him. It didn't hurt that she called him Apollo each day after she had apparently gone looking for someone in the guy's dorm and, ahhhhh, saw him," Her green eyes regain a twinkle and Kat knows Apollo will be pissed. She's sure that is way Starbuck is doing it, and nods her head like a good officer. "The instructor's name was Natalie Symons, she taught theory, and his flight instructor's name was Paul Green, with the callsign Hornet."
Kat couldn't help but smile. This was good and she knew Starbuck was being nice. As a thanks for listening to me present Kat got one of the biggest betting pools, minus a bit of candy. That was a small price to pay for everything else in it, and Kat knew it. So did Starbuck.
"Thank you Starbuck." She said than turned to leave, hopefully getting her instructor at least closer to normal. Maybe she just needed to sure Kat reasoned; maybe talking about it helped her see what was going on instead of bottling it up. The woman was more of a 'I'll die before I ask for help' kind of person so pushing her into sharing had maybe been a good thing. Or Kat had signed off on her own airlock order, whatever, it had her back to bothering Apollo and that was entertainment that had been missed.
"Kat?" Starbuck called after her one more time, Kat turned at the hatch and waited for what she was going to say. "In private you can call me Kara." and turned back to the room, she picked up a weight and began doing reps, while Kat opened the hatch and shut it behind her.
After that conversation Kat won of the biggest betting pools and Starbuck was seen with a lollipop from it's depths. The two still clashed, but it wasn't as violent and not as harsh. More of a sister's thing, and Kat fully understood more of what made her role-model tick. With that akin to an inside joke they slowly got to laughing, more often at each other. It looked like rivalry but both thought it was more than that, it was a secret friendship. And when the sign-up sheet for the rescue mission back to Caprica came around Galatica Kat's name was first on the list.
Le fin.