A/N: I really enjoyed writing this story, so I hope that you enjoy reading it.
Disclaimer: Battlestar Galactica is not mine.
For as long as Kara Thrace could remember she had never cried. There had been a few times when she had come close, maybe even letting a tear or two escape, but never had she broken down completely and sobbed until the tears refused to flow. Not once in her entire life, not even after Zach died. Some might call her cold-hearted, but it was something they would never understand. Kara Thrace never cries.
The cylons had attacked the twelve colonies of Kobol a few months ago. They had nuked the planets causing almost total annihilation of the human race. Billions had died in the attack, and now only a small ragtag fleet remained. That fleet was what was left of the entire human race. The enormity and hopelessness of it all was enough to reduce anyone to tears. Anyone, that is, except Kara Thrace. Because Kara Thrace never cries.
One might ask, how could she not? Especially if they knew all of what she had gone through in her life. Everyone needs some way to deal with their emotions. Kara Thrace has her way. When she was young, she had built up a wall. It was a defense of sorts. It kept all of her emotions inside, but it also protected her. Kara Thrace had never let anyone past her wall. It guarded her innermost thoughts, feelings, and most importantly, her emotions.
The wall had held strong for all of her life. It did its job. It didn't let anything out, nor did it let anything in. No one had seen the real Kara Thrace, the one that was hidden behind the wall.
The wall had taken many beatings throughout the years. During the hard times of Kara's life it had been under tremendous strain. Yet it had always managed to do its job and hold Kara's emotions at bay. It must, because Kara Thrace never cries.
It held strong throughout the cylon attack. It had remained intact after the accident in the hanger bay that had caused the death of thirteen friends and fellow pilots. It had done its job when she had interrogated the cylon prisoner, Leoben. It had endured the events of Colonial Day and the repercussions from it quite nicely. It had even managed to withstand Kara's little jaunt to Caprica. So it came as a shock when one day the wall faltered.
There had been a major cylon attack. Twelve raiders had jumped into the fleet. They hadn't seen cylons in almost three weeks so their appearance had been unexpected.
The fighters were launched immediately. Kara had been one of the pilots on alert so that placed her in the launch tube. She remembered it clearly: Kat, Hot Dog and her against twelve cylon raiders. Those hadn't been exactly the best odds. In fact the odds were terrible, and the outcome had clearly reflected that.
Kara had been the only one to make it back to Galactica. Hot Dog and Kat had been blown right out of the sky. They were rooks. They shouldn't have been out there, but they were.
As soon as Kara had made her emergency landing, Galactica had executed its FTL jump to the emergency coordinates. Thankfully all the civilian ships had been able to jump ahead, and no one else was lost.
Once the rush of adrenaline had faded, Kara had a chance to really think about what had happened. In short, two of her nuggets had died. But really, it was much more than that.
In a way, Kara was responsible for those nuggets. They may have gotten their wings, but they weren't prepared to be facing those kinds of odds. Because of this they had died. Kara blamed herself.
She couldn't help but notice the similarities between this situation and the one that had caused Zach's death. Pilots that Kara had trained were dead because she hadn't done a good enough job of training them, or so Kara chose to believe. Realistically this hadn't been Kara's fault, but still she chose to blame herself.
When Kara had come to this conclusion she felt the strong clutch of guilt. It was even worse than the guilt she still carried from Zach's accident. This new guilt mixed with the old, causing Kara to feel its effects tenfold.
Kara's wall held. There were great amounts of pressure from inside, emotions that were fighting for release, but still the wall held. It had to, because Kara Thrace never cries.
The day after, Kara was headed to the pilot ready room. Lee, being the CAG, needed to address what had happened. Kara sat through his speech, but didn't really listen to the words. At the end, Lee pulled her aside before she could leave.
Kara endured Lee's sympathetic look as all the other pilots filed out past them. Once they were the only two people left in the room Lee had asked if she was ok. He asked if she wanted to talk about it. Kara hesitated. That was her mistake.
The moment that she had hesitated her wall had cracked. It wasn't a very large crack; in fact it was rather small, but it was there nonetheless.
In the end she told Lee that she didn't want to talk about it. She said she was ok, but the damage had already been done.
For the next few weeks Kara went about her routine like normal. She flew her rotations and in her spare time she played cards. On the outside it appeared as if nothing had changed, but internally that wasn't the case. There was a flaw in Kara Thrace's wall.
That flaw had changed a lot of things. It was becoming harder for Kara to maintain her emotions. Every time she saw Lee he would give her one of his sympathetic looks. In the past, she would have ignored them. Now she couldn't.
With every look that he gave her, the more the crack spread. With every concerned gesture, the flaw went from miniscule to something far more severe. Slowly, with every concerned action of Lee Adama, Kara's wall was breaking down.
Kara was not prepared for something like this to happen. That was her security, and now it was teetering on the brink of destruction. If her wall did fail, then Kara would not know how to deal with the sheer intensity of the emotions that she had been bottling up inside. So Kara Thrace did her best to keep that wall from falling. Why? Because Kara Thrace never cries.
Unfortunately it was not an easy task, trying to keep that wall strong. It took almost all of Kara's strength and will power to keep it in place. But she was determined to do everything that she could to keep that wall, because Kara Thrace never cries.
For weeks, Kara managed to get by with a broken wall. The pressure that was building up from inside was immense, but somehow Kara managed to keep it from escaping. Yet with each passing day, it became increasingly harder to maintain that wall. Kara did not want to admit it, but she knew that one emotional event would cause that wall to fail completely. So to solve this problem, Kara began avoiding everyone. She figured that if she didn't have any contact with other people, then she might be safe. She might even be able to fix her wall, so that things could go back to the way they were. The one thing that Kara hadn't been counting on was persistence of Lee Adama.
When Kara began to remove herself from the normal actions of her routine Lee had noticed. He had tried to catch her alone so that he could talk to her, but Kara had other plans. She did everything that she could to avoid direct confrontation with Lee. She made sure that they were never in the senior officer's quarters at the same time, and she made sure that she was in the air when he wasn't. That way he wouldn't be able to come prying into her life and finish off her wall for good. Kara needed that wall, because Kara Thrace never cried.
One day Kara walked into what she thought was the empty senior officer's quarters. She had been planning on catching some rack time before her next rotation, but that plan was completely forgotten when Kara saw that she wasn't alone. Lee was in the quarters too. He was supposed to be flying a rotation, but for some reason he wasn't. He was in fact standing in the middle of the senior officer's quarters, and it looked as if he had been waiting for Kara.
The shock in seeing him had almost been enough to destroy her wall completely. But that was nothing compared to what the look of genuine concern and worry on his face did. As soon as Kara saw those emotions playing across Lee's face, she knew that she was in trouble.
Kara could feel her emotions straining against the weakened restriction of the wall. They wanted to be let out. The pressure on the wall was increasing. It was as if Lee's look had been the final, crippling blow to Kara's wall. It was too much to bear. The wall shattered.
Maybe Lee wasn't surprised, or maybe he was just good at hiding it. Either way, he said nothing as he held Kara in his arms. For some reason, today was the day that Kara Thrace cried.
A/N: Thank you for reading my story, and please let me know what you thought.
Also if you are looking for a good BSG site please check out the site listed as the my homepage on my profile. It is a very good place to discuss anything and everything BSG, old and new. (I have the same username there as well.)
Other than that, please review. :)