Disclaimers- I don't own the concepts, I don't own the characters, I make no money, I make no sense and I get no sleep.

Summary - Kara's thoughts before Adama visits her in life station at the end of 'You Can't Go Home Again'. This story takes place in the same universe as 'Shards' but reading that one is by no means necessary to make sense out of this one.

Spoilers - Anything up to and including 'You Can't Go Home Again'.

Warnings - May be seen as containing references to child abuse (non-descriptive).

Feedback is always deeply appreciated!


To Walk Away
(tag for You Can't Go Home Again)

Part 1: Before

Kara was trying desperately to hold the memories at bay as she waited for Cottle to come back and give her the verdict regarding her knee but even with the drugs currently making their way through her system she could still feel the pain and she knew that wasn't a good thing. She could also remember lying on a different bed with another knee injury many years before and she knew what had happened then. That wasn't something she was ever likely to forget... though maybe this time around it wouldn't be that serious, maybe this time around the damage wouldn't turn out to be as extensive, maybe this time around she would get lucky.

She knew there was a fairly good chance that this time around the damage had been to the patella rather than the ligaments. That was her best hope. After all, she was well aware of how her injury had occurred and she knew that --even though she had smashed her knee against a rock-- when it happened she had been in the process of being dragged by a parachute. That sounded like an unlikely source of comfort but it meant that there had been a major impact but no twisting motion and her knee hadn't been bearing any weight at the time... not like it had been in that pyramid court all those years before.

The problem was that, even though she knew the circumstances were different, she still couldn't stop thinking about what had happened back then and what the consequences had been. To make matters worse there was also the fact that she knew that --after what she had confessed to before she had crashed on that moon-- there were no guarantees the Old Man would even let her stay on the Galactica if she could no longer fly. That was a terrifying thought. Kara couldn't imagine herself anywhere else in the fleet and much less could she imagine herself just waiting there, unaware of what was going on around her and being unable to do anything but wait for the cylons to finish her off.

In a way that was her worst nightmare.

She remembered the countless sleepless nights she had spent as a child dreading the moment in which her mother --or one of her boyfriends-- would come into her room and she remembered how, once she had gone off to flight school, she had promised herself that she would never allow herself to be put back in that position. That was one of the main reasons why she loved flying so much. When she was in her viper no one could touch her. In her viper she was alone, she held her life in her hands and, as crazy as it sounded considering that she was a fighter pilot on the front lines of a brutal war, she felt safe.

Unfortunately her current injury meant that she didn't know if she'd ever be able to get back into the cockpit, nor did she know if she would be able to cope with being one of the protected instead of one of the protectors. What she did know was that, no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't imagine herself going back to being that weak, that helpless.

Well, maybe it wouldn't come to that. Maybe her injury wouldn't turn out to be that serious after all. Besides --even in a worst case scenario-- she knew that even if she could no longer fly she was still the only flight instructor they had left. Kara had never expected to find herself taking comfort in that fact --especially not after Zak's death, when going back to teaching was the last thing she'd wanted to do-- but she knew that that meant that the Old Man would probably have no choice but to allow her to stay. Unfortunately the fact that she would probably be allowed to stay did nothing to change the fact that the Commander had every reason to hate her.

Of course, Kara was well aware that in the end she had no one to blame for her current predicament but herself. Not only had she screwed everything up and gotten Zak killed in the process but she had also allowed herself to forget and let her guard down. She had allowed herself to trust the Old Man, she had opened up to him and allowed him past her defenses when she really should have known better than that. She had allowed him to see past her Starbuck persona, even though she had known all along that there was something he didn't know. That had been a mistake and now the time had come for her to pay the price.

Chances were that she was going to be spending the rest of her life under his command, seeing the hatred reflected in his eyes each and every day. That was far from a comforting thought... even though Kara was well aware that she fully deserved it.

She was still thinking about that when she saw him walk into her cubicle. She tried to look into his eyes, hoping to see some sort of hint that maybe he had forgiven her --though she knew that would never really happen-- but the only thing she could see was a mask and that terrified her... especially because she couldn't get away, because she was totally at his mercy.

On a rational level she knew her reaction was absurd, she knew she had nothing to fear because he would never hit her --or at least she had never thought he would-- but at the same time she couldn't help but to remember his words from their last encounter and experience had taught her the hard way that those words were invariably followed by actions. In fact those words were still resonating in her ears... 'walk out of this cabin... while you still can'. That was what he had told her only this time around she couldn't possibly walk away and that meant that she had no means of escape. The only thing that was left for her to do was to try and conceal her fear as he came to stand next to her bed.


Author's notes: Hi guys, okay, I know this was kind of weird but I was watching the first season again the other day and this little scene came to me. Anyway, I'm not sure whether I should leave it as a one shot or if maybe I should expand it a little so I'll call it done for now but I reserve the right to change my mind about that later.

Thanks for reading (and if you could also review I would really appreciate it),

Alec