Lee mumbled in response against his pillow.
"So you going to get them or not?" Kara stated again.
"What?" Lee responded sleepily
"Sleeping pills… going to get them?"
"Get them yourself…" Lee mumbled rolling over and beginning to drool on the other side of his pillow instead.
Kara stood up slowly, it wasn't easy when part of her brain assured her that she was standing already; she slipped and fell softly on the grass… the bed Kara corrected herself. At least that got Lee's attention; he sat up instantly, as Kara eased herself back under the covers.
"What is it Kara."
"It's raining again." Kara replied feeling raindrops on her face and hands. "We better go inside."
Lee laughed; then stopped when Kara interrupted him.
"Well I'm going inside and you better get the girls because I am not frakking climbing that tree house again today." At that point Kara seemed to become more aware of her surroundings, the shrieks of children running towards the steps faded away. The feel of the sheets replaced the sensations of rain and wet grass. The calm humming of the Galactica was substituted for the slow roll of thunder.
"What did you see?"
Kara blinked slowly, reality momentarily sinking in, "Oh nothing, just the future again." She answered sarcastically.
Lee paused, he was still unsure what to believe, but he was curious, "How many girls are we talking about?"
"Two." Kara answered, then she smiled and continued, it didn't hurt to tell Lee a little more, Claire and Robin; Kara let herself think their names, even if she couldn't say them. She knew the name of the child she was carrying, and the one that would come after. She could see their faces; hear their voices; interact with people who didn't even exist yet.
"You want two kids?"
"No, we have three." Kara said agitatedly.
"That's it, sickbay now." Lee grabbed Kara's hand and tugged her out of bed and tossed her tanks and pants to her.
Kara didn't argue, pulling on her clothes as quickly as possible, "So, I get the sleeping pills?"
"Nope, CAT scan. You're scaring me Kara! If this is a joke tell me right now."
Kara laughed humourlessly, "Its not."
Kara remained silent on their way to sickbay. As the scan was in progress she attempted to adjust her concentration. The glimpses into the future remained fairly constant. Only now, as she attempted to concentrate, the images slowed enough. She tried concentrating on her children. She concentrated on her younger daughter, Robin. The quiet one; born between her wild and wilder siblings. Various images flew through Kara's mind…she flinched at one and picked another focus…
As Cottle examined the images, he mumbled under his breath, "There is some unusual brain activity. Any more direct complaints?"
"She's having weird hallucinations," Lee quickly added, "Or visions or something."
"I'll run a few more tests." Cottle said grudgingly.
"I've seen my frakking grandchildren! Make it stop!" Kara demanded, directing her thoughts away from her children and to Earth instead. It was, it seemed, preferable to having her mind skip some thirty years into the future.
"What else have you seen?" Cottle asked pulling a clipboard off his desk and flipping to a chart.
"Future events." Kara answered blandly. Her tone easily illustrating she was not going to elaborate.
"I can give you a mild sedative, should help you sleep." Cottle responded.
"Can I leave yet?"
"Yes." Cottle responded handing her a small bottle, "Only take one, with water." He enunciated the last two words very clearly. The he added, "As needed."
The rest of the night was quiet. Lee relaxed curling his body around Kara's sleeping one, and sleep came easy listening to the steady sound of her breathing.
Lee left for his CAP, leaving Kara sleeping peacefully, he pressed a kiss to her bare shoulder, and made his way out the door.
In the briefing room, he rearranged the pilot's schedule with a grin pasted across his face. Kara was having a baby. Their baby. Cottle would make the hallucinations stop and everything was going to be fine. Lee had faith in two things; one was science, the other was Kara. And both would combine to overcome this roadblock.
Helo came into the briefing early, noticing the schedule changes, the complete removal of Kara from the duty roster. "So, I'll take it Starbuck won't be flying for a while."
Lee forced the smile off his face, "Medical problems." He answered, but the smile returned and Helo nodded in comprehension.
"Picked names yet?" Helo joked, making a show of searching the schedule for his own name. Lee resisted the urge to point and end this discussion.
"No." Lee snapped and then lowering his voice, "Kara wants this kept quiet Helo."
"Okay." Helo sat down as the room was filled with pilots, and the briefing began.
Kara awoke to an empty room, and a slightly light-headed feeling. The rush of knowledge took a few minutes to return. More about Earth and the struggles they would face there, the death of the Old Man… She fought off tears. But something didn't make sense unless… And an idea had sprung into her mind. She needed a confidante, someone to reassure her and she had finally decided who that person would be. Who it had already been, she reasoned based on her visions.
Kara entered Admiral Adama's office slowly. He was alone doing paperwork at his desk.
"Sir?"
"Yes?" His eyes lifted from the papers on his desk to fix on hers.
She knew he was still uncomfortable with the idea of her and Lee, but something told her he still loved her like a daughter. "I've been having visions, and I know that you don't believe in visions, but I want you to hear me out, I want you to believe me."
Bill Adama remained silent, but his eyes remained on hers, an invitation to continue.
"And I need to tell you to trust me, I have to tell you about Earth."
"What about it?"
And so Kara told him. She told him about the prejudice that would exist towards people from the colonies, how most of their people would live in a community made up entirely of people from the colonies, how some people would find it nearly impossible to find work outside of this community, how challenging it would be to attempt to integrate into Earth society, how they would barter and negotiate to be permitted to settle there. In general the future, avoiding as much as possible her own personal future. And then she told him that he'd never live to see it. It easily took shape with her words, and she could nearly see it again.
Bill took of his glasses and placed them on his desk, "Can you be more specific Kara? Describe an example to me; surely you must have experience this personally."
Kara paused, her mind swarmed with knowledge and images…
Kara blinked at the sunlight for a moment before ensuring that her year-old son was sleeping in the stroller. She adjusted the hood on the stroller, knowing Lee would be a pain to deal with if their son got another sunburn. He was so uptight about little things like that. The mall was fairly new, built to allow most of it to be lit with natural light.
"Mommy, let's go." Robin whined slightly.
"Not yet…Where's Claire?" Kara looked around nervously to find her six year old. They had taken the train from New Delphi Settlement to a city mall to shop. Usually Kara would not have chosen to leave New Delphi or to shop for that matter, but with a limited amount of people and goods it had been necessary. Especially for the art supplies she needed. Even so, she usually let Lee take the girls. Claire had wandered over to a child about the same age and was chatting energetically. That child could make friends on buses in five minutes…
"Okay, let's get Claire and go." Kara pushed the stroller towards her daughter, "Claire!"
The mother of the child looked up, "You must be Claire's mom, I'm Lily and this is Jenna." She said indicating her daughter standing next to her.
Kara knew enough about non-colonials to keep her mouth shut on where she was from, but introducing herself was necessary, "Kara Thrace, this is Robin," Kara introduced her younger daughter who was warily clinging to her side, "And this is Liam."
"How old are you Robin?" Lily asked politely.
"Three." Robin answered, not relinquishing her hold on her mom.
Claire smiled at her mother, "Can we go to the food court? Jenna's mom said we could."
Kara considered for a moment, "For a while." Kara paused, Robin was wrapped firmly around her leg, "Mommy needs to move, Robin."
The security checkpoint in the mall was dangerously close; everyone on Earth had a microchip, including the colonials. But Claire and Jenna were running ahead slightly and a slight beep notified her that Claire's microchip had been read. And the guard came over with an odd expression and a handheld scanner.
"Kara Thrace?" He asked looking from one woman to the other.
"That's me." Kara said, an edge to her voice.
"Step over here please."
Claire was walking back; they'd been through checkpoints before and the six year old was fairly used to it. One of the two remaining guards directed his attention to gently questioning the child to corroborate Kara's story.
Kara's microchip was scanned, and she waited as they sorted through her personal data.
"You were colonial military." The guard said accusingly. "What are you doing outside of New Delphi?"
"Shopping, for art supplies and there are more options for children's clothing here." Kara responded blandly.
At the words 'colonial' Lily was quietly talking to Jenna and taking her away from the checkpoint. Kara didn't blame her. Religion and the unknown served to make it much harder to integrate.
"How long has it been since you handled a weapon."
"Nearly four years." Kara answered honestly.
"And
where is your husband? It says here that Lee Adama was briefly
commander of the fleet."
"He's in New Delphi." Kara
answered dryly, "Working. He'll be meeting us here and then
we're going for dinner."
"Occasion?"
"His birthday, but you should already know that from the files."
"And these are your children?"
"Yes."
"You're here alone?"
"Yes." Kara lied quickly, there
were other colonials in the mall, they'd been on the same train,
but the last thing they needed was to be pulled aside and questioned
by paranoid guards convinced that the colonials were mutinous violent
crazy pagans. If only the first meeting had gone more smoothly, even
so the differences between Earth and colonial society were great, and
integration was difficult. If they hadn't been more technically
advanced they might not have been allowed to settle on Earth at all.
"I'm going to look through your bags." The guard told her, taking one of them off of the stroller and skimming through the clothes inside.
Unfortunately, just as the inspection was finishing up, Kara spotted Chief Tyrol, family in tow. She didn't make eye contact. Three ex-members of the colonial military would make the guards more suspicious. And since the checkpoint was distracted it was likely the Tyrols could pass without incident.
"Robin!" The Tyrols' three-year-old daughter Erin shouted and waved to her friend before her mother could stop her.
The guard turned around, "Come here please."
Galen and Cally walked over slowly, but Erin ran over and hugged Robin who relinquished her death-grip on Kara's left hand. And began to talk excitedly about some new doll her mother had bought for her. Nicholas was nearly two years older than Claire, and currently didn't like girls, but he walked over anyways. The children attended the same school and preschool in the settlement.
"Galen Tyrol?" The guard questioned him when the scanner had picked up the information.
Kara sighed, this had just gotten much worse…
Kara shook her head slightly to clear it in Bill Adama's office, "For example, about seven years from now I'll be pulled over in a mall because a security microchip scan point will have picked up my information and identified me as a colonial. I'll be questioned at the checkpoint and released. Our settlement New Delphi will be more of a city-state. There will be trains in and out, but the security will be a hassle, especially for ex-military. For Lee and I, it'll be worse." Kara made the choice to avoid mentioning her children.
"Why's that?"
"High ranking, he'll be involved in the administration of the settlement and I'll be the one who insisted we keep our defences, which they didn't-I mean won't permit. They won't like me very much."
"You'd find a way to avoid the checkpoint."
"I did, you don't get close enough, and they have to come to you, it goes much more quickly."
"What went wrong?" Bill asked.
"Chief and Cally and their family turned up, three ex-military in one mall."
"Why didn't they turn the other way? Go into a store?"
"Their daughter came over to us." Kara answered as vaguely as she could.
"Us?"
"My children and I."
An uncomfortable silence followed.
"And I'll be dead?" Adama asked quietly.
"Yes." Kara responded in a hushed tone.
Bill Adama looked at her cautiously, he had listened intently never interrupted, "I'm not sure what to say."
She answered the question he didn't ask, "You will see your oldest grandchild." she told him, and let her hand drift to her stomach, "And her name will be Claire Thrace Adama." Kara threw in the baby's middle name; she might as well be thorough.
"Did you come up with that name?" He asked, his eyes still on her flat midriff.
Kara thought for a minute, "No, Lee will…in a few weeks."
"And the others?"
"The children?"
"After telling me I'm going to die, the least you can do is fill me in on why, and on what I'll miss."
"Robin will be next." Kara added, "Born nine months after we find Earth, like many other children in New Delphi." Kara paused, "A couple years later we'll have Liam."
Bill shook his head, almost unnoticeably, "And will we ever fully integrate?"
"Somewhat. Earth will take time to accept us."
"We'll have to barter are way onto the surface and into houses and our own city. We'll be treated like outsiders, second-class citizens. This isn't the future I had in mind."
"It's not perfect, but it will be worth it, there's good too."
"From what you've told me Earth sounds like-" But Bill never finished his sentence as the hatch opened to reveal a bewildered looking Lee.
Silence followed.
