Title- Aftermath

Work In Progress

Author- PTBvisiongrrl

Part- 9/?

Date- 1-14-07

Rating – R

Pairings/Characters- Lee/Kara

Word Count- 2,147

Category- Short Story

Genre- Angst

Archiving- The Fallout Shelter, Apollo/Starbuck Fan Fic, All others please ask!

Warnings- Not really- just language…

Spoilers- Season 1 through the rumors of Season 3

Disclaimers- Unfortunately, I don't own any of these characters, and make absolutely no profit from taking them out to play…

Summary- How do Kara and Lee reconnect after both losing spouses in the Battle for New Caprica? Can they?

This took me quite a while to find the quiet space of time that I needed to get into the Kara/Lee exchange and emotions. I hope that it was worth the wait.

If these funny break lines are still in once this is posted, I apologize. I cannot seem to get rid of them. (Feel free to give advice on that, because it is really staring to annoy me. I don't want to have to start a new document and re-type the other chapters that I am working on. Cutting and pasting into a new document had only made the problem worse!)

Chapter Eight

There were very few pilots at the 0600 briefing that Kara did not recognize, even the ones from Pegasus, though Helo was the only one who greeted her warmly and without sidelong glances. The old Starbuck would have called someone on that; the new, more fragile Kara let it pass but noted it. Her assignments for the next week were two CAPs, one this afternoon, with an old hand pilot from the Peggy, and three maintenance shifts. With only one ship, but two ships' worth of personnel, the days of exhausting, never ending shifts was gone. People had more free time on their hands than ever before, though damn little to fill it with.

Kara sat and listened with half an ear to Helo's morning report, catching the important stuff but able, after all these years, to keep thinking in the background as it went on. She was itching to climb into her Viper and lose herself in the stars. The thought was calming.

Her inner serenity was shattered, though, at Helo's attentive posture and call of "Commander on deck!" She felt Lee's eyes on her as he made his way to the podium, but refused to look directly back at him. She was therefore caught off guard when he personally welcomed her back in front of all the other pilots, and could only manage a head nod. Lee seemed okay with that response, however, and left soon after his own quick nod in return.

What the frak? She wondered. At their last meeting he was so cold and mean and now he was greeting her like a missed and valued member of the crew? The total about face, blowing hot and cold like that, did not surprise her. She had known him long enough and well enough to realize that he was almost as emotionally crippled in his own way as she was, and that this was his way of apologizing for his treatment of her in the brig without actually apologizing.

That didn't make her less angry about it, but made it easier to clamp down on her emotions and lock them away to be considered later. She shifted in her seat, playing unconsciously with her pen, letting Helo's voice distract her from the memories of the past that the Admiral's seemingly simple request- set things right with Lee- had brought to the surface of her mind.

There was nothing to distract Kara once she was in the cockpit later that day. Her wingman for the shift was not the talkative type, and there had not been a Cylon sighting in weeks. Even after so long out of the cockpit, flying was second nature to Starbuck. She didn't have to think about what to do, it was instinct; it was a talent few shared, and what made her the best pilot in the fleet. But it also meant that there was nothing to keep her mind busy, and she kept finding it pulled back to Lee, as it always did when she flew.

Not long after the discovery of New Caprica…

Kara woke up slowly, shaking her head as if to clear it of the fog currently engulfing her mind. The last thing she remembered was a firefight, some scary moves even for her, and then trying to land her bird. In the midst of catching the trap, she had felt light-headed and tried to pull up to take another pass, then nothing.

The overwhelming glare of fluorescent lights and surroundings drowning in graying white told her, even through her partially opened eyes that she was in sickbay. Frak. That meant that she had crashed then. Kara begin a slow, mental inspection of her body, stretching muscles and feeling for any damage. Her knee had seemingly escaped further injury- she would have immediately felt the throb of re-injury if it hadn't- but she hadn't come out of it scot-free. Her arm was restrained, so she assumed broken, and her stomach and pelvis ached horrendously. She must have been thrown across the cockpit in the landing.

She was still feeling out her injuries when the unmistakable cloud of smoke that followed Doc Cottle everywhere but the operating room began to seep around her curtain just as it was roughly yanked back. "Well, Starbuck. How nice to see you again."

"Can't say the same, Doc." She spoke through gritted teeth. "How bad is it?"

Doc pulled a drag, before stubbing out his cigarette and flipping through her chart. "There's good and bad. You fractured your arm, but that's the only lasting injury."

She released a breath she didn't realize that she had been holding. "The baby is okay, then?"

Lee's heart jumped as he heard Kara's words through the curtains. Baby? She was pregnant? Wait, she knew she was pregnant, and she was still flying? And she had said nothing to him? Judging from Cottle's words, she hadn't told the doctor either.

"I wondered if you knew. It might have been easier if you didn't." Cottle hesitated a second, and that spoke volumes. "The baby didn't survive. It was too soon to tell if it was a boy or girl yet."

"How old, Doc?" Kara asked in an unsteady voice.

"Almost two months, I think." Cottle lit another cigarette. "Why didn't you say anything? You know you shouldn't have been flying."

"It doesn't matter now." Kara drew a deep breath. Lee could hear the tears she was fighting down in her voice. "And the kid is better off this way, anyway. I'm not fit to take care of a dog, much less a child."

Cottle took another drag. "I can't say that I would challenge that right now. You should be out of here in three days; maybe two. Six more weeks until the cast can come off and another two before you're flying."

Lee was so absorbed in eavesdropping and the implications of Kara's comments that Cottle almost ran Lee over as he came through the curtains. One look at Lee's face had Cottle shaking his head. "She's all yours, Commander," Cottle fired over his shoulder as he beat a hasty retreat. The storm on Lee's face pretty much answered any questions Cottle may still have had about Starbuck's pregancy.

Lee should have taken a moment to gather himself and calm down before he barreled into Starbuck's cubicle, but the shock of the situation overrode his usual common sense. Starbuck had tears streaming down her face, but that didn't deter him one bit. Anger flared up through the shock, searing his heart and making him unable to hold his tongue. "Whose was it?"

Starbuck held her head high, as if she knew that he had been on the other side of that curtain. He realized that she had known that he would find out sooner or later, and had been preparing for this conversation all along. "It doesn't matter now, Lee."

Lee roughly yanked a metal chair across the floor and over to the side of her bed. He kept his voice low, but the anger was still unmistakable. "Yes, Kara, it does matter."

"It doesn't. There is no baby anymore, Lee, and its for the better." Kara wiped angrily at the tears and snot pooling on her chin. "I would make a lousy mother."

Lee closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. "It does matter, Kara. But right now it matters more that you knew and didn't report it. You shouldn't have been flying."

"And doesn't this just prove that I shouldn't be a mother?" Kara gulped air into her lungs; it felt like she couldn't breathe from the pressure of trying to keep her emotions in control. "I couldn't give up flying, Lee. So I said nothing. I thought I had time to decide what to do-"

"Decide what to do?" Lee's eyes popped open. "There is no decision, Kara. You were having a baby-"

"Don't give me that holier than thou shit, Lee. The President can say what she wants, she can't have kids anymore. She has no right to force the idea on anyone else." Kara angrily raked her hands through her head.

"Again- what about the father, Kara? Shouldn't he have had some say in this?" Lee spoke quietly, but in a deadly, anger-filled voice.

"I-" Kara turned away from Lee. "I wasn't sure who it was."

"Bullshit, Kara," Lee snarled out. "We both know what happened two months ago. Was it mine, or not?"

Kara turned to face him, looking him clearly in the eye. "I wasn't lying, Lee. I really wasn't sure. But I think it was yours."

The blood drained from Lee's face. If he hadn't already been sitting down, he would have collapsed on the floor. "You thought it was mine, but you didn't say anything? Why not?"

Kara laughed, an angry, hurt sound. "Lee, I know we did what we did because we both thought that we were going to die on that planet and that Galactica would never find us in time. We almost did die before the Raptor got there. And there's that little matter of your wife."

Lee had the good sense to look shamed. "I didn't tell Dee anything-"

"She's not stupid. She figured it out, once you started avoiding me." Kara closed her eyes and leaned back on the crisp white sheets. "She point blank asked me, Lee, and I lied to her. I told her that nothing had happened between us down there, and that I had no clue why you were avoiding me. I could tell that she didn't believe me, but I lied for you."

"I never asked you to lie for me, Kara." Lee spat out.

"You'll be glad that I did, now." Kara stated bitterly.

"Like you lied to Zak for me, too?" Lee whispered.

Kara sat up abruptly, her eyes wild. "What are you talking about?"

"After that leave, and the bar fight- I felt guilty about what we had done. You never told me that Zak had proposed to you. He told me." Lee scrubbed at his face. "He never told you that he knew?"

"No," Kara mumbled. "How could you have told him, and not told me he knew?"

Lee rose and began pacing. "The better question is, why didn't Zak tell you? Did he tell you that he knew about the abortion, too?"

"What?" Kara yelped, almost unable to draw breath back into her lungs.

"The clinic called to follow up on you the next day. He was there, you weren't. He called me to ask what he should do." Lee stopped at his chair, leaning on the back with both strong hands clamped down so tightly that his knuckles shone white. "Was that one mine, too, Kara, or was it Zak's?"

Kara's face took on a deathly paleness, even for her. "I don't know for sure."

"Who else's could it have been, then? How many guys did you sleep with while you and Zak were broken up?"

"It doesn't matter, it's done and over with now. If it wasn't yours or Zak's, it was some nameless, faceless, dead guy's." Kara refused to meet Lee's eyes. "If there'd been a kid, I'd've been dead now, too. I would have been on the planet when the Cylon's attacked."

Lee asked again, in a more insistent and angrier tone. "Was that one mine, too?"

Kara answered quietly, in barely a breath of a whisper. "I told you. I don't know."

Anger- hot, burning, red, made Lee flex his fists and want to hit something. "I can't figure out if you're just an lucky slut, or a heartless murderer. Are there any other Adamas you've killed that you would like to tell me about now?"

"Bastard- go to hell!" Starbuck yelled, struggling to keep her voice down as she angrily confronted him. "You told Gianne you didn't want one weeks before mine. Why would I bother to tell you, when I already knew your answer? Do you think I really wanted to tell Zak that I might be pregnant with his brother's baby? And it really might not have been yours." She turned away from Lee and closed her eyes, as if the conversation was over and she was dismissing him. "Hell, it might not have been Zak's, either."

Lee refused to take the hint. His voice equally as angry as Starbuck's, he leaned close to her ear and asked one last time. "Was this one mine?"

She wouldn't turn to face him or open her eyes. "I told you. I don't know. And now it doesn't matter." She turned over on her side, as best she could with one arm in a sling, giving Lee her back. Lee walked away from her, at that point, escaping sickbay and the guilt of the past, freshly overturned and mixed with much more recent regret.