Title: Standing at the Edge of the World
Author: Kathea
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Season 4, Part 1
AN: Companion piece to "Upon Landing"
A part of me screams that surely a mistake was made. This can't be the Earth we've dreamed of for so long. This can't be the place we saw from Kobol. How could this be the treasure at the end of our quest? After everything we've gone through, survived, endured we are rewarded with a home devastated by war.
You can take the man out of the military but not the military out of the man. I can see the signs all around us. This is not a planet left to ruin over time but a planet destroyed by war. I've seen too much not to recognize it immediately. We look to Kara for guidance, for reassurance, for some kind of answer. Why would she know any more than the rest of us? She looks just as lost and confused as my father and the President. The Cylons are scared; this obviously wasn't what they planned for. Whatever they hoped to find was not here. I wonder if it ever was.
How do we tell all that is left of humanity that we found Earth but it is not the paradise we sought? How do we tell them that this charred hulk was worth the lives lost along the way? The view from space is idyllic. A pretty blue ball hanging in the darkness of space. Wide, dark landmasses are separated by wider seas. You can't see the damage from space. You can't feel the emptiness from there.
My father escorts the President back to the ship. She seems grateful for the support but their eyes have yet to meet. Kara is escorted by two Marines. She isn't under arrest, technically. She has shut down, I can see it in the slouch and shuffle of her walk. I don't know if she will recover from this. I don't know if she will be Kara when all is said and done. No paradise would be worth losing her, even to herself.