Brief Confessions
by KNS
Not mine, not mine, I like them a lot, but they're not mine.
Notes: Season 1, Episodes 1. Beware of spoilers.
And it was then I knew that the healing
of all our wounds
is forgiveness
that permits a promise
of our return
at the end.
Alice Walker "Good Night, Willie Lee, I'll See You in the Morning"
(Forgive me, Lords of Kobol. It's been 33 minutes since my last confession. What shall I tell you this time?)
The stars all look the same now. She can vaguely remember having the ability to appreciate stars on an individual basis, but that was when days consisted of hours rather than minutes. Hurrah for sleep deprivation.
Every time she drops out of the tubes, the old Mark II engines shuddering around her, she knows it could be for the last time. The thought quit bothering her thirty or forty jumps back. At this point she doesn't give a damn about much of anything.
(Lords, I'm sorry I didn't take that shore leave with Zak. He wanted to go and I said no. I can't even remember what excuse I used – I'm sure it was lousy, my excuses are always lousy. I really wish I'd said yes.)
There are only 15 seconds left before the cylons appear. No more time to think about late nights and lazy mornings of shore leave. There's no more shore and no more Zak. Only cylons.
(Forgive me, Lords of Kobol, it's been 33 minutes since my last confession, but I'm ready this time.)
Some of the other pilots are starting to lose it, completely lose it. She's doing okay because she lost it a long time ago. She likes to think she's always been ahead of the game.
There is only now: no yesterday, no tomorrow, only now. She keeps telling herself that, but unfortunately yesterday keeps whispering in her ear and tomorrow keeps flashing before her eyes. What's so great about yesterday? Why should tomorrow be any better?
"You alive over there, Starbuck?" Apollo asks over the wire.
"Let me check. Yep, still alive," she answers flippantly. She's rewarded with a tired laugh.
(Lords, I'm sorry I keep looking at Lee and seeing Zak. I'm really tired. It's just – he'll turn his head to glance behind him, or duck under a viper wing to inspect something, or a hundred other things – and I know it's only genetics, but for a second, just a second...)
"Ten seconds warning," Apollo announces. "Cylons will be here any time. Stay alert."
"But I was going to take a nap," she teases.
"After the jump," Apollo promises. "Then it's ten minutes in the rack for both of us."
She laughs. "Thanks for the invitation, Apollo, really, but I'm just too tired. Maybe next time."
Over the other pilots' snickers the captain says, "It's a wonder you don't live in the brig, you know, Starbuck? Really a wonder." The words are sharp but the tone is so filled with amusement that she only laughs again.
"Oh, Cag's becoming a cranky boy."
"Starbuck – "
"Positive cylon contact," Boomer interrupts tersely, and reads off a set of coordinates.
And then it's all about cylons again, no time for anything else.
If confession time comes again, she thinks she might apologize for occasionally wondering how her life might have gone if she'd met Lee before Zak.
End