ACT ONE
When she first saw his viper explode into a billion pieces, she thought of Hades.
If anyone had stuck with her through thick and thin, it was the God of the Underworld himself. Death followed her wherever she went and took whoever threatened his company with her: her father when she was eight, her grade six school teacher, her first boyfriend, her mother, Zak, Helo and the twelve gods-damned worlds, and now Lee.
For the first few weeks after her companion's claim on Lee, all Kara felt was numb. Not the morpha-induced kind of numb, but rather the kind that comes from near-complete indifference. Pain and exhaustion – the two feelings that have been prevalent throughout the Fleet since the worlds ended – no longer register for her.
She realizes that the experience is nearly tantamount to when she had frakked up her knee playing pyramid. For a week after the burly offense had pulled the illegal move that ended any future she had playing pyramid, she was stuck in a hospital bed, her leg propped up in a cast, simply obsessing over the end of pyramid for herself.
Of course, Lee's voice comes back from memory to haunt her, you recovered from that, you found a silver lining.
Silver lining? Kara remembers her side of the conversation, too. What silver lining?
You found flying, didn't you? Did the forces not recruit you a while afterwards?
Yeah, Kara had said. I guess so.
Reminiscing, Kara snort at the foolishness of her comparison. This was nothing like when she had frakked up her knee. There would be no silver lining this time.
ACT TWO
The days blur together. Maintenance shifts and CAPs, meetings and meals are all compressed into a single line which Kara follows in neither obedience nor objection. The cacophony that is the Colonial Fleet is streamlined into white noise and that, too, Kara ignores.
Before Lee's passing she had already resigned her post-apocalyptic life as a cycle of eat, sleep, fight, and fly. It seems like a silly understatement now, when she has no appetite, even less time to sleep and when fighting doesn't hold the same attraction it used to. Now, she merely flies, but even then it's not the same without Lee on her six.
After a month, the Commander has Dualla summon her to his office. She hasn't spoken to him since Lee's death when she had sought him out, still in CIC, after she had landed. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," was all she could say when the Old Man's icy stare had reached her. He shrugged off her apologies and walked away from her.
The reminder of how much she has failed him is as present as ever as she finds her way to his quarters. A marine lets her in and she finds him sitting behind his old wooden desk.
"At ease, Lieutenant," he tells her without looks up from the open report on his desk. "It has come to my attention that you have been the Commander of the Air Group since your predecessor passed, yet you still have not received a promotion. So, from here on, you will be Captain Thrace. You will find your new pins in the senior officer's bunk room."
Kara's brow furrowed with the surprise and she studied the Commander. In the corner of her eye something in her peripheral shifted and she was surprised to see a grey, cloaked figure circle a workbench in the room.
Death, as she recognized him, was investigating the remains of the small wooden ship that she had known to be Adama's pet project for years.
She realizes that someone has deliberately smashed it and she knows the queasiness she's feeling is the guilt burying itself a bit deeper inside of her.
The Commander dismisses her and she is half-way out the hatch before she looks back and sees Death now presiding over the Old Man, leaning over his shoulder. She wonders how long it will be until her grief of the death of the Adamas becomes a trifecta.
ACT THREE
She's been Captain for a month when she discovers that being CAG isn't the only responsibility of Lee's that she's inherited. She isn't sure what to think when Laura Roslin approaches her one day in the briefing room.
"Captain Thrace," the older woman greets her. "It's nice to see you."
Kara responds with a blank face, unsure what to make of Roslin's visit.
"I heard you were close with the late Captain Apollo – wingmen, I believe the term is. I'm so sorry for your loss."
"Why are you here?" Kara asks.
The corner of Laura Roslin's mouth turns up just slightly. "I heard you weren't one to beat around the bush, Starbuck, so let's get on with it.
"Morale is low not just on the Galactica but throughout the entire Fleet. You and Captain Apollo were quite the dynamic duo. The civilian population looked up to you two, they saw you as heroes."
Kara cannot help but laugh at the ridiculousness of what Roslin's saying. She is farthest thing from a super hero and Lee, well, he probably wasn't too close either.
She's not sure when she laughed last, but she does know that she hasn't since Lee's died. Either way, the small chucked she allowed herself earlier opens a flood gate of emotion. She laughs harder than she ever remember and by the time she's calmed, her ribs ache as if they've been stepped on (she know the feeling from experience) and she's cried so much she feels sick.
Roslin is still there lips pressed into a thin line of discontent. "Captain Thrace, I'm not sure what you found so funny, but if you're willing to take me seriously…"
Kara hears Roslin go on to introduce her idea of making a documentary about the pilots of the Galactica, but the President's words are becoming harder to comprehend and a slight nausea clouds her thoughts. She can hear the President call for her attention and she tries to focus on the older woman.
Before everything goes black, she sees one of Death's cold, grey fingers stroke Roslin's cheek.
ACT FOUR
"Have a nice nap, Captain?"
Upon hearing Cottle's greeting Kara immediately wishes for the oblivion of sleep again.
"Nu-uh, Starbuck," Cottle pokes her when she closes her eyes again. "Up and at 'em." Kara's groan failed to faze the Doctor. "We need to talk."
Kara sits up, resting her head on the wall behind her.
"What do you remember, kiddo?"
"Yes, yes you did," Cottle confirmed. He paused and studied her face before starting again. "Did you know that you were pregnant?"
"P-pregnant? What?"
"I'll take that as a 'no', then." Cottle sat down in the chair next to the bed, resting his clipboard down on his lap. From his pocked he pulled out a cigarette and an accompanying lighter.
"I-I don't understand," Kara starts. "How could I have gotten pregnant? I've had the contraceptive shots, I mean, you're the damn doctor that gave them to me!"
"The shots aren't foolproof, Starbuck. They leave a three-percent margin for mistakes and you've always been one to beat the odds." He waited another moment before continuing. "Any idea who the father is?"
A thousand images, sensations flash through her mind: the scrape of stubble on Lee's jaw as he kissed between her thighs, the pile of blankets in the Level 4 storage lockers, the shade of blue Lee's eyes were, the cold of the metal floor against her back as Lee drove into her, how his brow was smoothened when he slept, making him look years younger. She thought of dozens of secret trysts in storage lockers and nights spent hiding in his bunk, the curtain pulled down from the intruding eyes of the other pilots.
"I take it from your expression you do know who the father is." Cottle's words pulled her from her reverie. "Now, I don't need to know who the lucky guy is unless it directly interferes with yours or the child's health. I just want you to know that I have to tell the Commander by tomorrow morning."
Kara gave him a straight forward glare. "You don't do 'subtle'," she told him. "Now how the frak do you know Lee's the father?"
"Yell any louder and everyone the Galactica will know." Cottle smiled and took a puff from his cigarette. From beside her, Death inhaled the smoke that the Doctor emanated.
Cottle's smile disappeared with his next exhalation and, overall, adopted a more serious tone.
"I understand that you're in a complicated position, Kara—" this was the first time he had called her by her name, "—and that there are a lot of reasons for you not to have this baby, whether it be the end of the twelve worlds or not, but you should consider why you should have this baby." The physician stood up and took a deep drag from his cigarette, now nearly a stub. "Humanity is hanging onto a thread, Kara. Death is everywhere."
Cottle disappeared behind the curtain and Kara looked to her cloaked companion. He looked back.
ACT FIVE
"Numbness is really something I could use RFN, Doc," Kara managed to grunt as yet another contraction passed.
"No can do, kiddo. I've got to ration meds for people who really need it."
Kara sighed and, for the first time in months, wished for her little bubble of indifference again. Pain was one of the things that didn't register in that sphere and labor, she was learning, involved a lot of pain.
She clutched at the linens on the bed as she began to feel another contraction come along.
"Just a few more, Starbuck," Cottle called from the foot of her bed.
Cottle's "few more" turned into another three-hours-worth of contractions, each as painful.
Another wave of pain passes and Cottle and Ishay turn their backs to her. He whispers something to her that Kara can't hear. Cottle faced her again as the next contraction begins and Ishay exits the curtained area. Kara can see a distinct furrow in her brow before the curtain closes again. Suddenly, she is afraid.
She looks over to the wall on her right. It ripples for a moment before she sees Death climb out of the wall, his scythe vigilant at his side.
Her breathing, already labored, seems to increase and she looks to Cottle at the end of the bed.
"Doc, she musters. "Is…everything…all right? Is the baby…okay?"
The doctor's eyes meet hers in a look that doesn't bode well. He opens his mouth to say something when the curtain opens and Ishay walks in, followed by the Commander.
Adama's appearance is enough to distract Kara, if only temporarily.
Their interactions since he first called her into his office months ago have been short and formal. He has said nothing to her that he wouldn't say to any other pilot.
"Sir," she huffs as another contraction passes, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry…I failed you."
Adama walks to her side, just in front of the wall from which Death emerged, and takes her hand which has been gripping the side of the bed.
"No, Kara," he tells her. "I failed you."
He stays with her from then on and while the contractions don't get any less painful, knowing someone is there for her helps.
Still, she fears. Death is too close, too interested, for her to be comfortable.
Finally, the child is out and for a moment, the pain subsides. But the moment quickly vanishes when Kara comes to the halting realization that the child is not crying. Despite the acute ache it causes, she sits up a bit more to see the child at the end of the bed, shadowed by Cottle and Ishay. She sees the child's purple face and forgets to breathe when it registers in her mind that the child is not breathing.
She closes her eyes but it doesn't stop the vision of Death's skeletal grey hands around her child's neck.
A piercing wail shatters the image and Kara can breathe again.
"Congratulations, Starbuck," Cottle says already lighting a cigarette while Ishay hands Kara a small bundle wrapped in blue. "It's a boy."
From beside her, Adama pushes back the boy's blankets a bit and runs a finger along the child's neck. "Looks like he's got a birthmark there."
Kara examines the mark, small and shimmering. Lee's words echo, once again, in her mind. Silver lining.