disclaimer: not mine
characters, pairing (sorta): Kara Thrace/Sam Anders
length: 1800+
spoilers: er... for 2.4?
genre: episode insert
notes: this is what listening to Resistance does to my brain. (someone had to doctor Kara, and Helo probably was too butthurt about Boomer...)

Just a Matter of Time...
by ALC Punk!

Delphi Union High. Kara drew in another breath of smoke and ash and snorted to herself. What a stupid place to get stuck. Though she had to admit, it felt quiet, if not safe. For nerves that had been ready to jump into the cockpit at the least alarm, it was a respite. Not that she'd been in the cockpit much, with her knee. But she'd still jumped every time alert status was called throughout Galactica.

Caprica was too quiet after the constant activity of the battlestar. The woods had been so still that the breezes causing branches to brush against each other had been welcome. And the high school wasn't much better, as though everyone were just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

The tension had driven her to abandon Helo to an argument with one of the C-Bucs earlier, determined to find a place to just sit. One of the old classrooms had seemed ideal, and she'd carefully stayed away from the window when she took a seat on the desk.

Kara was smoking her second cigarette when Anders found her. "It always like this?" The question was asked more to make conversation than because she really wanted the answer. Figuring out how to convince the resistance leader to let her borrow his people for a raid that might get them killed was nibbling at the back of her mind. The push to get the arrow back, to find the road to Earth, could be felt underneath the exhaustion. Roslin was counting on her--hell, the fleet was counting on her.

"Like what?" he asked, setting the bundle he'd been carrying down next to her. He unrolled it, eyes on her, almost assessing her mental state.

Maybe he was. "Quiet." She pulled a last drag on the cigarette and stubbed it out in the mug she'd been using as an ash tray. One of the resistance members had given her the pack of crappy cigarettes, but Kara hadn't cared. They were better than nothing.

"Calm before the store," he explained, then he gestured with a cotton swab, "Rally's off dealing with a broken bone. You get me as a nurse."

"Do I need a nurse?" She raised an eyebrow, trying not to wince as the movement pulled at the cut she'd been ignoring.

He shrugged, almost diffident as he replied, "Shirts off, please."

"Oh, I see," she smirked, "Just an excuse to get me naked, huh." She didn't make a move to peel her shirts up and off. Mostly because she wasn't really sure she could lift her left arm up high enough without wincing. It was still feeling wrenched from the fight with the Cylon.

A laugh escaped him, "Not that desperate, Thrace."

"Could'a fooled me."

"There's dried blood on your back," he said, voice a little more sober. "Saw it earlier when I was getting the weapons unloaded."

"Not mine," Kara lied. She knew she'd been chewed up and spat out by the Six she'd fought, but she didn't care. Helo had swabbed some of it and she'd just impatiently told him she didn't care about the rest.

Anders reached over and poked a finger against the spot, making her hiss in pain. He nodded, "Shirts off," he repeated.

"It's just a scratch."

"Yeah? I don't know if you've noticed, seeing as you just got here. But things get infected fast around here, and the result ain't pretty--do you want to risk that?"

Kara rolled her eyes, but shrugged, "Fine."

It took both of them to get her shirts off, Anders moving to help her when she winced at the pull in her muscles. She was sure Cottle was somewhere yammering on about how she should have been stretching and moving to keep herself from seizing up. She turned a little, so he had a better view of her back.

"Bad scrape," Anders informed her, then added, "I'm going to clean it up, try not to faint."

Kara snickered, which covered her urge to wince as he poured acid on the cut, "Frak you," she said, "I don't faint."

"Yeah? Good to know." He poked hard again, then stopped, "Needs sealer, I think--"

"You done this shit a lot?"

"After several months of Cylon occupation, I'm good at bandaging scrapes."

Ignoring the serious tone to his voice, Kara said sarcastically, "And not much else, huh?"

He snickered, moving closer, breath brushing against her skin, "I'm pretty good at boiling water, too."

For some reason, Kara actually wondered what he thought of her sitting there, in her bra. She supposed she should be lucky she'd bothered with one that morning. Turning her head, she caught his eyes with her own and snorted, "Gonna make me tea or some shit like that?"

"How about I buy you a drink later." He finished taping the last side of the bandage down and cleaned his hands, "I'd get that changed if you end up showering later."

"You offering?" Kara challenged. She smirked at the look of surprise and heat in his eyes. So he wasn't as uncaring as he was appearing.

"Nah. You're injured."

"Never stopped me before."

He laughed. "Didn't think it had. But I prefer women who aren't high on pain medication."

"You sure that isn't the only way you can get them?" Not that she was, of course.

Anders looked surprised for a moment, then snickered and drawled, "No, darlin', I can't walk for the women throwing themselves at me."

"Yeah? How drunk were they?"

Bantering with Anders was a little like before the attacks, when things were normal. Of course, before, there wouldn't have been Cylons and nuclear radiation turning the light outside the window orange with the dust kicked up into the atmosphere. For a brief instant, Kara entertained the notion, wondering if she would have taken Anders back to her apartment or not. Probably. They would have frakked, he would have left, and she would have moved on.

But the orange light filtering into the classroom changed things. She couldn't say how.

He shook his head and held out her shirts, "Unless you wanna keep flashin' your tits at me, Thrace, you might want to get dressed."

Kara snickered, but took her shirts and pulled them on without help, though her shoulder twinged again. "You gonna doctor the rest of my scrapes, Anders?"

"Gonna be nice to me?"

"Frak, no."

He laughed, and stepped around in front of her, starting to work on the dirt, sweat and blood still covering her face. "Least you're honest."

His fingers were soft under her chin, holding her head still as his other hand scrubbed and cleaned. He was as gentle as he could be, but Kara had more than a few scrapes, and cursed more than once before he was finished. When he was done, he stayed where he was, looking down at her, his hand under her chin.

"I got something wrong with my face?" Kara finally asked.

Her voice startled him, and he blinked then dropped his hand and stepped back. "Nah, it's sorta cute."

"Oh, nice." Rolling her eyes, Kara pushed off the desk, wincing a little as her knee gave a twinge. Fighting the Cylon had re-inflamed it. She should probably be sitting somewhere with it iced, elevated, or she could just have someone shoot her up with morpha.

"So. What's your story, Thrace?" Anders asked.

She glanced over at him, watching for a moment as he put the sealant and bandages back and rolled everything up again, then shrugged, "What makes you think I've got a story?"

"'I just got here'." he quoted, meeting her eyes, "Where'd you come from, Starbuck? Picon? Tauron? Is there a resistance on another planet that's making headway?" There might have been something hopeful in his eyes.

"No." Trying to decide what to tell him--what would make sense, at least--Kara wandered over to where she'd dropped her pack. She and Helo had bunks down in one of the inner classrooms, and she'd left her jacket there, but kept hold of the pack and the arrow. She fished the latter free, running her hands over it as she moved back to Anders. "I'm from Galactica. There's a fleet of us out there, on the run from the Cylons, only we discovered that--" she half-grinned, "Apparently, this arrow will show us the way to Earth."

He looked at her, then the arrow and reached to take it from her, turning it over in his hands, "Earth." He laughed, "That's such a myth, you know. But you... you were free and you came back, to this?" he met her eyes, gestured towards the orange light still spilling into the room.

"We need a new home," Kara said simply. "They're counting on me, to get this back." It was a little hard to do that, with her ride gone, of course.

"You're crazy, you know that, right?"

Kara gave him the patented Starbuck grin of doom, "But you're going to help anyway."

"Nuts," Anders told her, looking at her, then nodding towards her stuff, "C'mon, I know where we can keep this safe."

"Safe?"

"Do the Cylons want to find Earth, too?"

Like that was the most logical thing to say, and Kara suddenly remembered the Cylon holding the arrow, looking it over like it was a prize. She'd been waiting in the museum for someone to come looking for the arrow. For Kara, perhaps? Kara buried the thought and the shiver that it caused and grabbed her pack and Anders' little medical kit, following him from the classroom.

He led her down into the locker room behind the gymnasium (now disused, since it was too open to outside observation). Once there, he handed her the arrow back and started rummaging in the coach's office, coming up with a metal cyllinder that was long enough and large enough to slide the arrow into. It closed neatly with a snap-top lid and Kara didn't have to be shown how the strap hung neatly over her shoulder.

For a moment, they stood there, Kara wondering what would be next. Then she almost asked him to buy her a drink before she decided she didn't care. "Thanks."

He shrugged, "Need a tour?"

"Nah." She smirked at him a little, "Gonna miss me while I'm gone?"

"Who says I won't make you take us with you?" He teased back, heading out the door.

Us. Kara watched him leave, wondering for a moment if that were possible. Then she knew it wouldn't be. Not even a heavy raider would fit Anders' full crew. And he wouldn't leave anyone--she didn't have to ask him to know that.

Just like the old man wouldn't leave her behind. Her lips twisted into a stupid grin. She'd get a ride, she'd get back, and she'd show them all the way to Earth.

It was the least she could frakkin' do.

-f-