Title: "The Weight is a Gift"
Author: Lila
Rating: PG-13
Character/Pairing: Kara, with a bit of Kara/Lee and Kara/Sam
Spoilers: "Rapture" but veers AU
Length: Part I of III
Summary: Everyone has to grow up sometime, even Kara Thrace.
Disclaimer: Not mine, just borrowing them for a few paragraphs
Author's Note: This is my first venture into the BSG fandom, so please be gentle. I've been trying to reconcile my feelings on Starbuck, who I liked a lot previously and is annoying me immensely in the later half of season three. I know babyfic is cliché and probably overdone, but if there's anything I want for Starbuck it's for her to grow a pair and start acting like an adult, not a spoiled teenager, and babyfic created an outlet for taking her through that journey. I would love feedback because while I've written fanfic before, never BSG, and the first fic in a new fandom is always the hardest. I'm worried about characterization and would love more experienced readers and writers to let me know how I'm doing. Title and cut courtesy of Nada Surf. I hope you enjoy.
It starts when it's her run at CAP and the bottom half of her flight suit won't button. She blames it on the new food, because no one's body is adjusting well to a permanent diet of processed algae, and doesn't think about it again. She eats a smaller portion for lunch and dinner, but the next day she can't get the button closed again.
She spends her offtime running, running to nowhere, and dodging personel as she moves through the causeways, but when she bends at the waist and presses a hand to her side to catch her breath, she can't ignore the hot curve of her abdomen. It's hard, and she's always had a body made of muscle and sinew, but something is different. Something's wrong, very, very wrong, and she's Starbuck and she's tough and doesn't break so easy, but she's been through too much and seen too much to think she's indestructable.
It isn't easy, but she makes an appointment with Doc Cottle and tells him her bum knee is acting up. He watches her through a cloud of cigarette smoke, taking in the flushed cheeks and feverish eyes, and jabs a needle in her arm to suck out a vial of her blood. He mumbles something about an iron deficiency and she nods absently, chews the end of her cigar and drums her fingers nervously against her thigh while she waits. It's weird, being in the sickbay without Lee's obnoxious banter ringing in her ears. She closes her eyes to block out the memories, but it doesn't work and they flash against her eyelids against her will. Lee has propped himself up on her crutches and he's laughing, teasing, pushing her to push herself. She thrusts open her eyes and she's bitten clear through the end of her cigar. It tastes old, bitter in her mouth, and she spits it into her palm. It looks the way she feels, torn and twisted and unlike itself. If only she'd been more careful, thought her actions through…she hops off the exam table, fake knee injury be damned, and throws the cigar out. She wishes she could dispose of her own mistakes so easily.
"Lay it on me straight, Doc," she insists when he pushes her curtain open and appears at her bedside, clutching a folder in his hand and his customary cigarette tucked behind one ear rather than propped between his lips. He won't quite meet her eye and she won't meet his, and fixes her gaze somewhere over his shoulder rather than look at his face.
"You're not going to like what I have to say, Starbuck," he says and tries to catch her eye, but she's too good at this game to let him win.
"So what is it? A couple weeks on med-leave? Another surgery?" She looks at him for half a second, long enough to wiggle her eyebrows and flash a trademark grin. "More happy pills to make me all better?"
"You're pregnant," he cuts through the bullshit and she literally feels the smile drop from her face. She shivers, and it has nothing to do with the cold air blasting over the expanse of skin revealed by the too-tight fit of her tanks.
Neither of them say anything for a long moment. "What can I do about it?" she finally asks, but Doc Cottle just watches her sadly. She doesn't say it outright, but they both know what she's talking about.
"You know the rules, Captain. It's a law now."
Her lip trembles, just the tiniest bit, and she locks her jaw to keep her expression straight but it can't quite hide the fear flashing through her eyes. "But I'm a pilot," she says. "I'm the best fraking pilot in the fleet. They need me." It goes unsaid that she needs them too, and she grips the edge of the exam table to keep from punching the sympathetic expression off Doc Cottle's face.
"They need babies more," he says. "If humanity has any hope for survival, it needs to grow." She's eyeing him strangely, because she's never known him as anything but cranky Doc Cottle, and right now he's looking and acting like the grandfather who died when she was seven. Her knuckles flare white as her fingers tighten on the table edge; the last thing she wants is another person's pity.
"Okay," she says tightly through the locked jaw. "How do we go about doing this? I can still fly for what, three, four months? Then I have it, and can get back in my cockpit, right?"
It's Doc Cottle's turn to watch her strangely, and he shakes his head, the sympathetic look moving to his eyes. She turns away so she doesn't have to see it. "You're about six weeks along," he explains. "You'll be on leave for the next nine months. When your body starts healing, we'll work out a plan to put you back in a bird. For now – " He realizes she's still not looking at him, and he lays a gentle hand on her bicep to get her attention. Her skin is like ice under his, and she flinches, but he doesn't think it's from the cold. "Starbuck, you're going to have this baby. Do you understand what that means?"
"How could this happen? I'm always careful…"
He sighs. "The radiation from the star cluster. It seems to have negated the effects of birth control. You're not the first I've seen, and you won't be the last."
"And there's nothing I can do?" She finally meets his eye and there's a pleading cast in hers, totally uncharacteristic of Starbuck, and it pains him that the mighty have fallen but it's beynd his control.
"Accidents will happen," he says, and when she says nothing in response he puts it in terms she'll understand. "You can't always pull the high card, Captain Thrace."
She nods, just a tiny flick of her head, and blinks rapidly. "You're grounding me immediately, aren't you?"
"I have to, President's orders. Nothing can get in the way of a baby being born."
She flinches, a shudder coiling through her entire body, and he knows it still has nothing to do with the cold air. Her voice is small when she speaks, without a trace of her usual cocky Starbuck confidence, and he hides his smile because motherhood is humbling her and it's only been ten minutes. "I want to tell the Admiral myself," she says. "Can you do that for me?"
He knows it's bad when she's asking for favors, so he writes her a note about her knee and pulls a bottle of pills out of his stores. "Vitamins. One every morning. It's good for the baby."
Again, a flinch. "Sure, whatever." She hops off the table with an exaggerated bounce. "Can I go now?"
He nods, presses the bottle of pills into her hand. "One every morning. You'll remember?"
She presses a hand to her still flat stomach and smiles bitterly. "I won't be flying for nine months." Her fingers tighten angrily around the bottle. "How could I forget?"
He wants to tell her it will be okay as she walks stiffly out of sickbay, but it's still the end of the world and he's not sure it will ever be okay again.
---
Kara wonders if she can take care if herself. She's heard the rumors, knows the stories – there are still ways to get around Roslin's ironclad rule, with the right number of cubits and a few bottles of the Chief's home brew. It would be dangerous and she could die, but it would be over and if she got lucky enough, might prevent it from ever happening again.
She weighs the risks as she walks to the officers' quarters, Doc Cottle's note clenched in her fist. She could die every time she straps herself into a viper and shoots through the tubes into war and oblivion. She knows if she dies at a raider's hands, she dies a hero; the gods would honor her death, grant her a spot in Elysium. Zak's face swims before her eyes and she can't help but smile because she knows he'll be waiting for her there. When she dies in the backroom of a freighter, her blood seeping out in a steady stream of her own doing, she knows the only face greeting her in hell will be her mother's.
She shudders, and it still has nothing to do with the cold.
The quarters are blessedly empty and she collapses into her rack, the vitamins rattling against the plastic bottle the way her thoughts rattle against her brain.
She wonders if she can convince Roslin to make an exception for her. After everything she's done for the fleet, she deserves a break. She deserves to keep saving their asses, even if they'll only whine about the military in the papers the next morning. She's a pilot – it's the only thing she knows how to do.
She rolls on her back, one hand on her stomach, and it's still flat but the hardness she's not used to is also there. In a few months, she wonders if she'll even be able to fit into her bunk.
Nausea rolls up her throat and it has nothing to do with the thing in her belly. The room feels stuffy and the metal walls of her rack are closing in on her, and it's getting hard to breathe. She forces herself to a sitting position, drops her head between her knees, takes long, painful breaths and tries to force her vision to focus.
It can't be happening. None of this can be happening, not to her. She's put her life on the line day after day, flight after flight – the gods are supposed to cut her a break. She closes her eyes, tries to get some persepective, but phantom fingers trail through her hair and grip her skull as she's pressed up against the control panel of a raptor and Lee's chest is molding to her, helping her bend the rules.
Marriage is a sacrament, but fidelity is too. She presses an unconscious hand to her belly – she knows she's being punished.
The hatch opens and Lee steps through, eyes fixed on an open folder in his hands. He has a pen tucked behind his ear and he's mumbling something under his breath, and hasn't seen her yet. She looks around wildly, because Lee might be the CAG again but he's also married and has his own quarters; he isn't supposed to be here.
"Hey," he says when he finally spots her, and she's managed to sit up straight and prop up her leg for authenticity before he noticed her. She pushes the bottle of vitamins under her blanket and they're noisy enough to distract him. "What are you doing in here?" he asks and closes his folder. "Aren't you on duty?"
She forces a smile, tries to make it seem like everything is alright. "I could ask you the same question, Major."
He smiles and crosses his arms over his chest, muscles flexing under the thin cloth of his shirt. She looks away; those muscles helped her into trouble in the first place. "I've never seen you skip on CAP, Kara." The smile smoothes into a frown. "What's going on?"
She points to her knee, tries to seem nonchalant when her thoughts are pounding her brain at a mile a minute. She needs to get away from him, sort things out. "Knee's acting up." She swears under her breath for effect. "Fraking Cottle put me on med-leave until he thinks it's better."
He buys her excuse, but doesn't appear to be in any rush to leave. His eyes travel the length of the empty room, and she knows him well enough to know what he's thinking; it's what got her into this mess to begin with. With effort, she pulls her leg into her rack and crosses her arms over her belly. The weird hardness is still there and she quickly drops them to her sides. "I'm tired, Lee, okay? I just wanna sleep until this is over."
His frown deepens. "It's only a knee injury, Kara. You'll be on your feet and drilling the nuggets again in a day or two. I'll talk to Cottle, see if we can get you back in a bird sooner than later."
She closes her eyes and swallows hard, because she and Cottle can only keep up this ruse for so long. "No, it's okay. Better to let it heal now than flare up again later."
He looks at her like she's lost her mind and leans over her rack to press a palm to her forehead. "Are you sure you're okay?" His skin is smooth for a military man, and gentle against her brow.
"I'm fine," she insists and puts a hard edge in her voice. "If I can't be out there, I'd rather catch up on my sleep in here. Isn't that what you're always telling me, more sleep makes a better pilot?"
His smile is more than a little bit smug. "You got me there. I'll take my paperwork elsewhere, let you sleep."
She doesn't say thank you, just holds her breath and hopes he'll go. She can't think when he's around and right now it's all she needs to do. He stands up and picks up his folder, eyes never leaving her face. They're too soft for a man married to another woman. She wants to look away, but not until he leaves. He takes a step for the exit, but turns at the last minute and bends over her rack to press a gentle kiss to her brow. "Feel better," he breathes against her skin and smoothes back her hair. "Sweet dreams."
She remembers, way back when, her father kissing her goodnight, telling her she'd do the same for her own child some day.
She manages to wait till he's gone before she starts crying.
---
She's forgotten that Sam and Lee are sort of friends now, but remembers quickly when her husband appears beside her rack an hour so later and tells he's taking her to the Rising Star for some R&R.
"I'm not going anywhere," she tells him and thanks the gods for a supposed nap taking credit for her red-stained eyes. "I'm not an invalid, Sam. I just hurt my knee." The lie gets easier each time she tells it, almost like it's no longer a lie.
He sits in a chair across from her, and she notices how out of place he appears in the officers' quarters clad in civilian clothes. "Kara, you're not going to be flying for a couple days. We could use the time together."
"Sam…" she trails off because being alone with him is the last thing she wants, the last thing she needs, because being alone with him got her into trouble to begin with.
"Kara, let me talk, okay?" She nods and he continues, crossing his arms across his chest so the eagle wing on his shoulder flexes, struggles to take flight. Her own tattoo prickles in response, because it knows a bird can't fly with clipped wings. Sam's a good man – too good a man for this. "I know we've had our problems, but you're my wife. I love you. I want us to work this out. I think we just need to get away, find each other again. When was the last time we did that, just you and me? No Adamas, no Galactica, just Sam and Kara, the way it used to be."
The nausea bubbles in her throat again and it still has nothing to do with the thing in her belly. "Marriage is a sacrament," she tells herself. "Divorce is a sin. Sam is your husband. You made a choice – deal with it."
He's watching her, waiting for an answer, the same open, earnest expression on his face that got her into this mess to begin with. He pulls a pack of Triad cards from the pocket of his cargoes. "I'll play you for it. I win, you leave Galactica for a few days. You win, I'll let you be." The challenge is there, but she knows it's not over the game; he wants her to come with him, cards be damned.
"I can't go, Sam," she says. "Just cause I'm on sick-leave doesn't mean I don't have responsibilities here."
His face hardens and his arms slip to his sides. "Since when do you play by the rules, Kara."
She doesn't know how to answer him because explaining how the gods chose to kick her in the ass isn't something she can talk about at the moment.
"I'm a pilot, Sam," she tries to explain. "They need me here."
He pushes his chair back sharply and gets to his feet. "And I'm your husband. I need you too. You might want to remember that sometime."
The hatch closes angrily and she shudders slightly from the impact. She drags a hand through her hair and the ghost of Lee's fingers trail with hers. Her muscles twitch and her eagle wing flexes, still trying to take flight. She wonders if she'll ever get her feet off the ground again with the new weight she's carrying, the burden the gods have added to her shoulders.
She brings her free hand to her belly and there's no swelling but the hard length of it is starting to feel familiar. She knows she can't make it go away. She knows she has to see it through, because she's Kara Thrace and that's what she does.
She closes her eyes but this time she doesn't cry – she knows what she has to do.
---
The president is in the old man's quarters when Kara arrives to tell him, and she doesn't feel bad about interrupting whatever they were doing together, because if the old man hadn't had Lee or Roslin hadn't altered Colonial law, she wouldn't have this problem.
She waits nervously for Roslin to leave and and takes deep breaths to calm her nerves. Roslin is finally gone and she's seated on the old man's couch and he's watching her, waiting for her to start talking.
"What's going on, Captain?" he asks and his voice is soothing and patient, like he has all the time in the world. The time bomb in her belly flares to life with the nausea and she closes her eyes to keep from retching right on his carpet. "Kara?" he says and she presses a hand to her chest to keep from losing it.
"I'm pregnant," she manages to whisper and her body runs cold as the words leave her lips because knowing the truth and admitting the truth are totally different things and saying the words out loud makes them painfully real. "Oh, gods, I'm pregnant."
Adama's eyes widen slightly and his lips curl into a small smile. "I'm assuming congratulations aren't in order?"
She laughs at his attempt at humor because she has to, even though his words aren't particularly funny. Her words aren't either, and now that they're out of the bag there's nothing to do but try and accept them. "Doc Cottle's pulled me off rotation." Her eyes flick angrily to the door Roslin recently departed through. "I'm grounded for the next nine months." She feels the tears fill her eyes and blinks to try and keep them at bay. "I'm so sorry, Sir. I never meant to let the fleet down."
Adama doesn't say anything for a moment, just reaches over to lay his hand on hers. "The day of the attack, do you know one of the first things President Roslin said to me?"
She shakes her head, because of course she doesn't know.
"She said people better start having babies. You're only doing your part."
"But the fleet – "
"We have other pilots, Captain, and you're the best flight instructor we've got. You're letting no one down."
She can tell by the look in his eyes that he means it, and he isn't disappointed in her, doesn't hate her for taking herself out of commission. "Thank you, Sir."
He pauses for a moment. "Kara," he says again and she knows it's important because he's using her given name. "Have you thought about what this all means? Do you understand what a pregnancy entails?"
She pulls her hand from underneath his and crosses her arms under her breasts, away from her traitorous belly. "I get fat, I have the kid, I get back in my bird. End of story."
He smiles, but it's not the encouraging smile of before. "I've been through this twice. It's not so simple. Mothers – " he starts but retracts his words when he sees her furious expression. "You're going to have another being living inside you for close to a year, Kara. You're going to be feeding him, sheltering him, keeping him alive. Bonds form, whether you want them to or not."
"Just like whether or not I want to do this, right?" she cuts in. "This isn't my choice. I'll have the kid, because it's the law, but I don't have to enjoy it."
Adama just smiles at her sadly and if he weren't the Admiral she'd slam her fist between his eyes to knock the expression off his face. "You may find your feelings change."
"I doubt it. I said I'd do this. Can't we just leave it at that?"
"We're all dealt a hand, Kara. We can only do the best with the cards we're dealt."
"I know," she says and rises quickly to her feet, knowing she won't be able to for much longer. "I pulled the low card."
"You may be surprised," he says. "Sometimes the low card wins all."
She pulls up a memory of her viper whooshing through the tubes and jetting out into space to save what's left of the world because she's not sure she'll ever be able to do it again. "Not when you're up against full colors. Thank you for your time, Sir."
She does a quick salute and gets the hell out of his office before losing it entirely, and barely makes it to the nearest head before losing her lunch. She grimaces at the reflection in the mirror, because her eyes are too bright and her complexion is too creamy for someone breathing recycled air and living on processed algae. She's known for less than a day and she can already tell the difference in her body. It's only going to get worse.
---
She decides to tell them together because she doesn't think she can say the words twice. They sit in identical chairs in the officers' quarters, Lee in his prim and proper military gear and Sam in mismatched civilian clothes he'd managed to dredge up from somewhere. Doc Cottle had officially grounded her an hour earlier and her eyes dart from man to man, unsure of where she belongs now. With her news, she assumes home is no longer with either of them.
"Kara," Sam starts because she's just sitting there, watching them, not saying a word. She's not ready, not sure she'll ever be ready. "What's going on?"
Lee nods, joins in. "Is everything okay?"
Somehow, the words slip out of their own accord. "I'm pregnant, and one of you is responsible."
It's out there and she can't take it back, and both men just stare at her as they digest her declaration.
Lee watches her from his chair wearing the same broken expression he wore the night she told him there was nothing between them because she was all about Sam. Somewhere, she knows the gods are laughing at the irony of the situation. Sam is the first to speak. "How?"
She can't believe he's actually asking for clarfiication. "Do you need me to draw you a diagram, Sammy? Accidents happen."
He doesn't back down from the challenge. "You're supposed to be on birth control. How did this happen?"
"Radiation in the star cluster," Lee whispers. "I have two Pegasus pilots down for the count for of the same reasons." He finally looks up to meet her eyes and they're anguished and defeated. "Kara, what are we going to do?"
"You mean what am I going to do?" she bites out, and on the defensive she's starting to feel more like herself. She looks at Lee, "You're going back to your wife." She looks at Sam, "You're going back to your ship." She take a breath and stands, feeling exactly like her old self. "I'm going to have it and get on with my life."
Lee rises too. "Kara, you can't be serious. We need to talk about what we're going to do – "
"What I'm going to do!" she repeats herself. Sam is standing now too, and they're both bearing down on her and she can't take it. "You don't get it. This is my problem. Mine. You two can go back to your lives like nothing happened, but I can't. Everything changes for me now."
They're both watching her like she's crazy. "And it doesn't change things for us?" Sam asks. "This isn't a game anymore, Kara. That's a baby you're carrying." She flinches over the word, and out of the corner of her eye she sees Lee flinch too. "I'm your husband, Kara. Let me help you through this."
"But you're not necessarily the father, right, Kara?" Lee asks softly. "That's what this is all about, isn't it?"
She slips her fists into the pockets of her sweatshirt and her fingers lock around the idols hidden there, Apollo in one fist and Artemis in the other, clinging to them for support. The movement pulls the material of her shirt up her torso and reveals an inch of the bare skin of her belly, drawing Sam's and Lee's gaze to her exposed stomach. She's never been conscious about her body before, but her body isn't just hers anymore. She lets go of her gods to face Sam and Lee alone. "I don't know."
"Great, that's just great," Sam says and runs an hand over his face. "What are we supposed to do?"
Lee jumps in before she can answer. His voice is soft and gentle, but his question is devastating. "Kara, what do you want us to do?"
She looks at them both, her eyes meeting blue and trading them for brown. Her fingers move to her gods again, Apollo and Artemis torn apart, and she knows there's no easy way to put it back together again. Infidelity is her sin, her burden to bear. "I want you to go home, both of you." Sam takes a step forward, and she shakes her head. "Home isn't with me, for either of you."
She takes a step back, slips into her rack. "Just go." Neither of them move, but she no longer has the energy to fight them. "Please," she asks and there's a pleading note in her voice that makes her wince. "Just go."
She won't look at them as they trail out, but she hears Lee's voice at the hatch. "If you need anything, Kara, I'm here. All you have to do is ask."
They both know it's an empty threat because she's Kara Thrace and if she knows anything, it's that she's alone in this. Always has been, always will be. The offer might stand, but she'll never ask.
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