Daddy's Little Girl
Note: Up to Kara's confession of her involvement in Zak's death in "Act of Contrition"
Kara Thrace didn't have parents.
Her mother beat her. Her father wasn't around. So when she left for military school, for her role as flight instructor, she pretended they didn't exist. And for a while, that worked. She became Starbuck, ace pilot. She met Zak and fell in love. She lived, she met Lee. She had friends and a life, and when Zak asked her to marry him, she almost had a family.
They'd gotten busy with school and work, though, so for a long time she'd never met the Adama patriarch. She met Carolann, thought she was a bit stagnant but nice enough, yet she'd not seen the famed Commander.
"He's with Galactica until next month" or "He's out" were the only things she got out of Mrs. Adama most of the time. Zak always just shrugged. Lee glowered. So she'd let it drop.
When Zak died, she almost crumbled, and then she'd met him. He'd been so strong, stronger than a man his age should have been. He'd taken her hand at the funeral, been her support, and from that moment on she'd had a father. He'd taken her under his wing, taught her, given her every chance to soar up the ranks of the military and laughed when her big mouth got her in trouble. He'd been everything her own father had never been, and even Lee had thought fondly once or twice of his father for being so. He'd told her once that his father had always wanted a daughter, and saw the failed engagement to Zak enough to consider her as such. It had warmed her so much to hear that, that she couldn't bring herself to ever confess her greatest sin: she killed Zak. She feared the loss of her only decent parent.
She never told the Old Man what she'd done, until now. Until hes telling her not to beat around the bush with compassion in his eyes. Shes strong for just a second after that, but his next words undo her.
"I love you like a daughter." His lips quirk up a bit, his eyes showing more emotion that most people think he has, and she crumbles before him for the second time in so many years. And she speaks. She confesses everything because he deserves it. He's her father. But in the next second she wishes she hadn't said anything, that she'd simply bawled and sought comfort.
The betrayal in his eyes burns down all that she knows he thought of her, his daughter, in an instant. So she begins to cry. Strong, indomitable Kara Thrace breaks down and she can't even go to her only source of comfort, because she has hurt him. And she leaves at his command, unable to look at him.
Later, when shes falling, falling, falling, the only thing she can think is that her last conversation with the man she loves like a father was the most fracked up thing she's ever done. She wants to call out over the PA, wants to say goodbye to Lee and let the Old Man know she knows...
Because she knows he can't stay mad at her. Knows after the close call with Lee that no sin is too great for him to forgive. He had three kids once, he can't stomach having only one. But she doesn't speak, because how does a girl say goodbye to her father without the entire fleet knowing how much she needed a family, a father? Shes fracking STARBUCK, shes not dying with the whole fracking fleet thinking how much of a daddy's girl she really is.
She just hopes he knows that its true.
I admit it. Im addicted to bsg and papadama stories...and i havent finished s1
