There were two things that Kara Thrace knew without a doubt: The Cylons were untrustworthy mother-frakkers, and she was not in love with Lee Adama. These two concepts were so glaringly obvious to her that she could never understand how anyone could possibly doubt either one.
Well, the first one did get confusing sometimes. After all, Boomer was a Cylon, and helped the Old Man several times. Helo loved Boomer-- or should she be called Boomer #2? Cally shot the real Boomer. Or was there even a such thing as the 'real' Boomer? Yeah, the Cylons could be confusing. In the end, though, anyone that ties down women in baby-making farms and steals their ovaries cannot be trusted. Case closed.
The second one, well, that was just plain obvious. There was nothing between Apollo and Starbuck. A couple of kisses, but who hadn't she kissed at some point or another? There had been that strange- and rather embarrassing- moment when she'd called the Vice-President by the wrong name, but that didn't mean anything. Not really. And they probably would have frakked that one drunken night in the bunkroom, if she hadn't been hung up on Anders. But didn't the fact that she had been hung up on Anders negate the idea that she was really in love with Apollo?
Kara Thrace was not in love with Lee Adama. It's just that simple. It was probably the only simple aspect of their entire relationship.
Starbuck knew full well that the crew aboard both the Galactica and the Pegasus loved to speculate about the mighty Apollo and Starbuck. They were legendary as individuals…they reached all new levels as a pair. There wasn't even a word to describe the mythic proportions they hit as a team. Their daring stunts to save the other from almost certain death, their fights, their drunken escapades—sometimes it seemed too much to believe. So she couldn't really blame anyone for the rampant Apollo-Starbuck gossip. There was always something new to tell.
Past tense. There always had been something new to tell. Now there was nothing at all. Even their current cold war was old news. It wasn't just the old anger that had kept them from speaking during the entire year that she had lived on New Caprica with Anders. It wasn't even resentment over the antibiotics that Anders had needed so badly. Kara would never know if Apollo would have relented and given her the meds. The Cylons had found them and the Fleet jumped away, leaving neither time nor opportunity to run the meds down to the surface. Had she been in command, she would have made the same decision. She couldn't blame Apollo for her husband's death any more than she could blame him for the six months she'd spent fighting in the resistance on New Caprica. It was easier to blame the Cylons for finding them, and the gods for creating this frakked-up reality. No, she didn't blame Apollo for any of this. In fact, she tried not to think about Apollo at all.
At first, it had been easy to avoid any thought of him. He was Commander of the Pegasus, and she had been reinstated as CAG on the Galactica. She had been too busy prepping nuggets and creating flight schedules for the renewed war against those frakkin' toasters. In her little downtime, she was mourning the loss of her husband, and trying not to feel guilty for feeling like he was better off this way. He would have hated life on a battlestar, and she could never have lived on a civilian ship during wartime. He didn't belong on Galactica. She did. Not to say that she hadn't been happy down on New Caprica with him…sure she had. But that had been during relative peace. That had been Kara. This was war…this was Starbuck.
After three months on board, however, Starbuck had settled into her new reality once again. It was so familiar to be on the Bucket, running from Cylons, toying with nuggets. Familiar enough to make the few absences all the more notable. Tigh was no longer the XO. His bones would remain on New Caprica forever, betrayed by his lovely, treacherous wife. Dee was dead, killed in an attack on the Pegasus. Even had she lived, she'd have been stationed on the Beast, alongside her darling husband. Or was it fiancé? Starbuck couldn't recall if Apollo had ever gotten around to actually marrying Dualla. No one was brave enough to mention his name in front of her. No one, that is, except the Old Man. And she simply couldn't get angry with him, because he was all she had left now.
Now that she's settled on the Galactica once again, it's becoming harder and harder not to miss Apollo. Those few moments when their eyes would meet across the room as he watched her fleece some nuggets at triad. That glint of humor in those too-blue eyes that showed how well he knew her. Their spars, their wrestling matches, their jabs that didn't hurt nearly as much as their words did. Even their fights. It wasn't that she was in love with him. It was just that she was a little lonely. So she drank more and laughed louder, and no one was the wiser. Had he been on Galactica, he would have seen right through her act. Then again, if he had been on Galactica, maybe the act wouldn't have been as necessary.
No, she wasn't in love with Lee Adama. She'd tasted love before. Love was the innocent-yet-forbidden way that Zak held on to her at night. Love was the way Anders made her laugh while sitting in a tent on a cold, inhospitable planet. Love was light and warm and fuzzy. Love was not well-matched with Kara Thrace. She wasn't light, she wasn't warm, and she certainly wasn't fuzzy. Neither was Apollo.
Three more months go by, and now he's back on Galactica. They'd had to let go of the Pegasus, use it as a decoy. They had to speak now, and they had to speak frequently. There's no way for the CAG to avoid her XO. Or for him to avoid her. But they speak in stiff, formal words that reflect their rigid body language. He is no longer "Lee" or "Apollo" to her. She's no longer "Kara" or "Starbuck". It's just titles now- "Colonel Adama" or "Major Thrace" or "sir". And she sees the way the crew watches them, waiting, hoping, anticipating the day the ice melts and Apollo and Starbuck fly at each other's throats again.
In the middle of the night, when she was awake and alone, she could admit to herself that she also waited and hoped. Anticipation was gone, though. Anticipation assumed that it would someday happen. She never once thought that this cold war could last so long. She was too stubborn to let him see how much she wanted it to end. If he'd bothered to look, he would see it in her eyes. But he never looked anymore, and she didn't see past the rigid way he set his jaw to the same pain and longing in his eyes. The only people they fooled were themselves.
Sometimes she thought she saw him watching her, from the corner of her eye. Sometimes she saw his face when she closed her eyes. Sometimes she wanted to cry, to scream, to hit something because he was like a stranger. Mostly, she wanted to hit him. She could feel it boiling inside of her, and she almost didn't care that she'd be thrown into the brig if she hit him. She'd hit her XO before, and Colonel Adama was being even more of a superior asshole than Tigh had ever been.
He got under her skin, that was all. He always had, but she used to be able to tease him, yell at him, hit him, laugh at him. No one had ever understood her the way he had. And it pissed her off that he was so aloof and distant now. But she was determined that she wouldn't break first. If he wanted that stick out of his ass, he'd have to yank it out himself. It wasn't that she was in love with him.
After all, love was light and warm and fuzzy. This couldn't possibly be love.