All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places
Worn out faces

She was back on rotation just two days after having been rescued. The Admiral reinstated her as CAG on Galactica declaring she was the best for the job. She could read between the lines though-- he wanted her to keep her mind off of what she left behind.

As she walked back onto the flight deck she was struck by how little it had changed in the past year: the Vipers were still lined up in front of the launch tubes, carts of spare parts and tools were scattered around the deck, Tyrol had even retaken control of his deck. As Jammer handed her helmet to her, she heard the Chief yelling at another knuckle dragger about the state of one of the Raptors. "Loose bolts, shorts in the nav control! It's a miracle this bird didn't explode! Get her fixed- NOW!" It seemed as though nothing had changed, but she knew that this was only skin deep. Dig a little deeper and one would notice that nothing was the same- everything was different.

The birds showed many new scars from the recent Cylon battles during the recent rescue attempts. Even the Galactica herself looked worse for wear. Granted, she had passed her prime years ago--she was supposed to be turned into a museum over two years ago. But being maintained for a year by a skeleton crew had taken its toll: more corridors were closed, there was more rust showing at her joints, and even the count of available Vipers had decreased.

The Admiral looked years older, and even Lee was different. She gave herself a mental shake: she had a CAP to fly; she couldn't afford to dwell on that man.

Bright and Early for the daily races
Going nowhere
Going nowhere

"Viper 254, this is Shooter: You are cleared for launch." She gave him a thumbs up and soon her Viper was shot into the blackness of space.

It was the same every time. Six hours of endless flying around the fleet. Six hours of endlessly protecting the remaining citizens.

It was a thankless job. Those same people that she was protecting could only focus on the mistakes they made. She had quickly lost track of how many times she had been asked why the military hadn't prevented the explosion of Cloud Nine—an explosion that had destroyed four ships, killing thousands in total.

She hated flying now. An uneventful CAP was her worst fear. When she was Apollo's wingman, they had always maintained some form on meaningless banter. Now she had six hours to think of her husband, left somewhere in a shallow grave on New Caprica. Six hours of thinking of how much she missed Lee.

New Caprica was supposed to be a new start—a place full of hope and joy. Instead, it had become a place of loss and a source of grief. She needed to forget about Sam, forget about how much Lee hated her because of Sam… What she needed was oblivion.

Their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression
No expression

Everyone knew that she had started drinking again--there was no doubt about that. It was hard not to notice her bloodshot eyes and the way she gripped the podium to keep herself steady when she conducted morning briefings. Helo had tried to confront her about it one day but that had ended poorly: he had ended up with a black eye and broken nose and she had spent the next two days in the brig. After that, no one had the nerve to approach her again: self-preservation was more important.

As soon as she was released, she locked herself into Tyrol's 'special' supply closet. She'd had way too much time to think in the brig. She just wanted to forget about how much she missed Lee's little visits--something he had always made time for when she was in the brig for one reason or another.

Hide my head I wanna drown my sorrow
No tomorrow
No tomorrow

"Kara, look at yourself. You're drunk and you have CAP in an hour. You need to get a grip."

"And I suppose you're the one to help me!" Her words were slightly slurred but anger had a way of sobering her up fast. "Where were you when I asked for your help on New Caprica, Lee! My husband is DEAD because you wouldn't help me!"

"Don't you dare blame me for that frak-wit's death. You were the one that abandoned me to move down to that gods-forsaken planet."

He didn't see the punch coming even though he probably should have. His reaction was instinctive and he punched her back.

Rubbing her jaw, she spat out, "Sam was more of a man then you'll EVER be. I don't know what I ever saw in you!"

"Frak you! I know what you saw in me: an easy frak, right? A way to forget about your pyramid boy-toy back on Caprica. 'There is no us.' Isn't that right, Kara? Gods! You broke my heart that night. I am not to blame here. And now that your pretty-boy is dead, you want to come crawling back to me. Well guess what, that is NOT going to happen!"

He stormed out of her office and slammed the hatch behind him. She collapsed into her desk chair and laid her head in her arms on the desk, trying to muffle her sobs.

And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had

I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take

When people run in circles it's a very very
Mad world
Mad world

Everyday was the same: wake up at 0430, morning run until 0500, shower, then CAP from 0600 until 1200, work on the birds down for repairs, paperwork, another CAP rotation, paperwork, maybe a game of triad and the accompanying alcohol,and asleep by zero hundred hours. It was a hellish schedule but the routine kept her sane. She was dead tired, but she was grateful for that in some twisted way. If she was tired enough and drunk enough she didn't dream--she simply slipped into unconsciousness until her alarm woke her the next morning to face another day of emptiness.

Children waiting for the day they feel good
Happy birthday
Happy birthday

She had turned into a cruel parody of her previous self. No one except Helo dared to call her Starbuck anymore: It was always Captain Thrace. Starbuck had been left behind on New Caprica.

She had a look in her eyes that no one had seen from her before—she was completely lost. She used to tell Apollo all about her day--what made her mad, what scared her. But now she kept everything inside and the pilots could tell that she was falling apart at the seams. No one knew exactly when or why their friendship fell apart but they knew it had something to do with Dee and Anders. Maybe they each wanted someone to fill the void left from their broken friendship. Either way, the crew on Galactica knew that it wasn't a matter of if she finally broke down, but when.

And I feel the way that every child should
Sit and listen
Sit and listen

The funny thing was that no one who knew her blamed her: they knew that they would probably act the same way if they were in the same situation. In a short time, she had lost her best friend and her husband; she had lost all the stability of her world. Kat and Racetrack had overheard the fight between her and Lee the week before and it didn't take long for everyone on both the Beast and the Bucket to know that they had both admitted how they felt about each other, but they were too angry to hear those little confessions.

After that fight, Lee could be found about the fleet with Dee hanging off of his arm. Kara, on the other hand, took on nearly endless rotations and was rarely seen in the rec room anymore.

The two pilots who were transferred over from the Beast just laughed at the idea that their drunken CAG could have robbed them shitless in Triad. Helo just gave them dirty looks and beat them four games straight until he called it a night.

Went to school and I was very nervous
No one knew me
No one knew me

She did NOT want to do this again. Watching more men and women die because she had not trained them properly. Hell, most of the nuggets were no more than kids this time around. She could NOT be responsible for killing children. And all of them were just starting basic flight: it was going to be a long session.

The nuggets looked at their new god with a mixture of fear and loathing. Fear because this woman had complete control over the next few months of their lives, and loathing at the fact that their god looked like she was about to pass out.

She ran her fingers through her hair and screamed in frustration--she had one more training eval to complete. Four of the nuggets were showing immense progress and two were slowly getting the hang of it. She had to make a decision about the last one though. Nexus was simply not improving and she had to make a decision about him soon—wash him out and offer him a place on the deck crew, or watch him keep struggling and hope that he would eventually pick it up.

She quickly scribbled 'Recommendation: Deck Crew' at the bottom of the paper and clicked the pen closed with a satisfying snap. Gods, she needed a drink. Tyrol was trying out a new method and she figured that she might as well be the one to test it out.

Hello teacher tell me what's my lesson
Look right through me
Look right through me

She was walking down the steps of her Delphi apartment and tensed when she saw that someone sitting on the couch with his back towards her. She immediately relaxed when she recognized who it was-- you can't be engaged to a guy and not recognize him from the back.

"Zak." she stated. He turned around and she saw that he was smoking a cigar. She gestured towards the general area of his hand and commented, "That better not have been my last one." She wandered over to stand in front of him.

He blinked for a moment and then shot up from the couch, looking at her with a confused expression on his face. "Kara! What are you... why… You aren't supposed to be here yet! I don't understand."

"What does that mean: 'not supposed to be here yet?' Hello, this is MY apartment--I live here! Come to think of it, you aren't supposed to know about this place." With a pang in her heart, she noticed that all her paintings were still leaning up against the wall. Paintings she had created after he had died. "Oh, I see."

A gentle smile appeared on his face. "I'm so sorry, Kara..."

A cynical laugh tinged with hysteria escaped her. Once she started, she couldn't stop and tears were soon running down her face. The laughter quickly turned to sobs and Zak pulled her down onto the couch. He stroked her hair and held her until her crying had subsided.

She finally pulled back a little and looked into his brown eyes--so different from Lee's. "You… you're sorry? Shit, Zak, I frakking killed you, and here you are apologizing to me? Why?" she asked in a small voice.

"For making things so hard on you. Things were supposed to turn out differently, ya know. I've learned things since being here… I wasn't even supposed to be in the picture. But you have a way of messing up the best laid plans."

A crease appeared between her eyebrows as she tried to figure that out. "I don't understand."

"No, and you won't for quite a while." He looked directly into her eyes and she felt as though he was looking directly into her soul. "I want you to know that I forgive you for what happened to me. You did what you thought was right. It was a mistake in the end, and I'm okay with that. I don't blame you, and Dad and Lee have forgiven you too. You need to forgive yourself and let go. You need to let me go, Kara. Move on."

"But… there was Sam. I did move on."

Zak kissed her lightly on the forehead—a chaste kiss between friends. "We both know that's not true, Kara. Sam was never meant for you, and deep in your heart, you realize that he was just a replacement."

"Replacement for what?"

"Oh!"

She opened her eyes to see Nexus standing behind a startled and clearly embarrassed Cally, who was standing just meters away holding a box of fuses in her hands.

"I'm sorry sir, I didn't see you there. I'm just showing Nexus around the storage lockers. Trying to get him orientated to things around our little piece of the Bucket. We'll get out of the way now. Have a good day sir."

Nexus shot her a dirty look as Cally lead him out of the locker. She picked up the jar next to her and lifted it to her lips. Empty. "FRAK!" she screamed as she threw it across the room--it shattered against the wall. She pushed herself up and stumbled down to her office where she could at least have some privacy.

And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had

I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take

When people run in circles it's a very very
Mad world
Mad world
Enlarging your world
Mad world

She pushed open the hatch and was met with a rather haggard looking Apollo. "Kara, we need to talk."

She ignored his intonation when he said her name—almost like a prayer. "No." Her answer was flat and emotionless.

"Too bad; you don't have a choice," he responded softly as he approached her.

"I don't want to do this now! Get the frak away from me!" she yelled at him. She could feel the anger boiling inside of her, increasing when he started easing her back.

He continued to force her backward until she hit the wall. He placed his hands on either side of her head and she knew she could not escape.

"Not until you listen to me! You are making this harder than it is. How hard can just listening be?"

She knew she wasn't going to get out of this one. She decided to bite the bullet, clenching her teeth together, "Fine…talk"

This was not the way this was supposed to happen but Lee figured that he wasn't going to get another chance to talk to her like this. He had to roll the hard six and just get everything out in the open.

He pushed himself back from the bulkhead and rubbed his stubble covered chin. "I don't know where to begin so I am just going to start.

"I'm frakking worried about you, Kara. We used to be partners in everything and now that I don't have you by my side, I'm lost, but I know that my problems aren't as bad as yours right now and I guess I am trying to apologize for what I said to you." He noticed her eyes get wide at his apology. They had never explicitly apologized or asked for forgiveness. It had always just happened before. One day, they were mad at one another; the next day, they were back to being Starbuck and Apollo.

He plowed on ahead. "I was as angry at you as I was at myself, and that scares me. It used to be that only you were wrong, I would call you on it and things would get out of hand. Or maybe, I was the one who was wrong and you had to rub my face in it. But not this time. I knew that I was hurting you but I couldn't stop myself. I needed you to hurt so that I would have some valid reason to be hurting too. Gods, I was such an idiot. But Kara, you don't know what you do to me…"

He had started pacing between the desk and the door. Kara was still tipsy enough that following him with her eyes was making her dizzy so she slowly sank down to the floor to gaze up at him. He noticed the movement and came to kneel before her, as if in some strange mockery of a proposal. Her took her hands in his and brought them up to his chest.

"You have been under my skin from the day I found you in the brig after punching Tigh. You had that infuriating grin on your face and my Gods, I knew that I would never be the same again. But you were off limits and I had to remind myself of that all the time. First, I would think of Zak and then I would think of regs. But I finally realized that neither of those things mattered. Zak would have found the whole situation hilarious, and would have just made lewd jokes about his brother and fiancée. And rules are made to be broken…" She laughed aloud at that one.

"Hearing rules are made to be broken is not something that I ever expected to come out of your mouth Adama."

"Shh." He placed a finger against her lips. "I am talking and you are listening.

"I eventually realized that I was just kidding myself. I couldn't let myself near you for a completely different reason. I was holding back because I was scared of how deeply I care for you. If we ever got together, I knew it couldn't be a one-time thing because I'd want more. So I finally took a chance, thinking that maybe we were on the same page. Then you tore my heart apart. So I immersed myself in someone so completely different then you, hoping to drown your memory. Gods, I'm such an idiot. Even then I couldn't stop thinking about you--I still can't stop thinking about you now. You're a part of me, something that I can't let go of no matter how hard I try."

Kara looked away from the raw honesty in his eyes. Damn his gorgeous eyes! He gently cupped her chin and turned her head so that she was looking at him again. "Look into my eyes Kara, and tell me you don't feel the same way. Tell me you don't and I will never bother you again."

The tears pooling in her eyes made everything fuzzy and he brushed the first tears away with his thumb. "Tell me… tell me you don't feel something and I'll leave right now."

"I can't… Sam…" The tears started falling in earnest now and he gathered her up in his arms.

"Sam's gone, Kara, but you did everything you could. Hell, I was even prepared to give you those meds you asked for, but those damned Cylons showed up. You loved him Kara but you have to stop blaming yourself! Please, Kara… you're just hurting yourself even more. Let it go. It was not your fault."

"I can't," she sobbed into his shoulder. "If I let him go…without him, there won't be anything left for me!"

He pushed her bangs behind her ears and quietly whispered, "You have me, Kara; isn't that enough?"

"I don't have you… Dee has you," she muttered pathetically. "I never had you."

"Look at me, Kara." She reluctantly met his intense gaze. "You're wrong Kara. You've always had me but we were both too blind to see it. I'm your friend Kara. Always have been, always will be." He chuckled a little and then added "The fact is that you're just an emotional frak-wit when it comes to relationships."

A small smile played at the corners of her mouth. So it was back to the same game: the constant teasing that had always been a staple of their friendship.

She sniffled. "I'm scared Lee. I can't keep losing people I care about. I can't lose you."

"You won't lose me. I promise. We're Starbuck and Apollo. Nothing can get between us. Just give it some time, Kara. The pain gets easier. Just remember that I'm always here for you. And… I love you so much, Kara… I couldn't bear to lose you either."

Things weren't the same, couldn't be the same. Too many things had been admitted--the air finally cleared. But he knew they were okay, and he would help her deal with her loss, because that's what friends do. She relaxed in his arms while he gently rocked her back and forth. Eventually she fell into a deep sleep, knowing that when she woke up, Lee would be there to help her pick up the pieces of her shattered life.

End of the pretty