Kara Thrace sat in the center seat of the front row in the briefing room. This was the first day of the rest of her life, and she was scared to death. It had taken all her strength to finally stand up to her mother and say that she was moving to Picon because the Academy had accepted her application to join Flight School. She was going to be a Viper pilot. Her mother's reaction was to immediately tell her that she wasn't good enough to be a Viper pilot.
Well, she would show her. She planned to work as hard as she could to graduate as the best pilot the Academy had ever seen. Old Wickman who ran the garage in her Caprican neighborhood already said she had a natural talent for understanding all things mechanical. She figured it wouldn't be so hard to transfer that into talent for flying something mechanical.
Her eyes darted around at the people who would be her classmates. They didn't look like they were anything to worry about. Half of them looked like they hadn't even experienced one hard day in their life.
She caught the eyes of a young boy at the back of the room. Was he staring at her? What the frak did he want? She hoped to the gods that he wasn't going to be like the last moron who had strolled over to her and asked if she was lost. She had wanted to deck him. Just because she didn't look like your typical Viper pilot didn't make her any less good.
A little voice in the back of her head wondered if maybe he wasn't like the others. He was staring at her with such open honesty. She could almost see the same struggle to be the best deep inside him. Maybe he wanted to be her friend. Maybe if she talked to him, she would forget about how scared she was for a few seconds.
She found herself telling that little voice to frak off and gave him her coldest glare before facing the front.
She had no time for friends.
Kara stepped outside her instructor's quarters and stood in the corridor. She couldn't believe they had done this to her. Her own damn team had requested that she be transferred.
What the frak had she done to them except push them to be their best?
Well, telling Nightwalker that if he wanted to get good at flying, he should get the stick out of his ass and use it to fly instead, that might have been pushing it. And taking out Bear's target last week when he obviously wasn't good enough to do it without her might have been overstepping her bounds.
But, damnit! She had been the only reason those rejects hadn't washed out yet.
And now she had to bounce from team to team until the instructors found someone who didn't mind working with the difficult nugget. Damn. The way things were going she was never going to get her call sign.
Her instructor had said that if she started focusing on improving her skills and not bucking for the stars which were not within her reach or abilities, she might actually stand a chance of being a great pilot one day. Like that was supposed to make this situation all better.
Bucking for the stars, huh? He thought she was just some kind of star bucker?
Wait a minute. She stopped in front of the simulation room door she was about to pass. Starbucker. Starbuck.
Now that was a good call sign.
She would have to suggest it to her instructor when she had a chance. He would find it funny since he had inadvertently come up with it.
But first, she was going to stop bucking for the stars and work on improving her skills.
Bursting into the simulation room, she started yelling, "All right, you worthless pieces of Cylon crap. My instructors tell me that you all are getting a little too big for your britches. They figured they'd send in good ole' Starbuck to straighten you out. See if maybe I can put your frak-ups in your place."
No one really responded to her taunting which was something new. Her old team couldn't keep their mouths shut when it came to firing back taunts. Maybe that was why they weren't that good of flyers. Too busy trying to keep up with her out of the air to be able to keep up with her in the air.
Great. Maybe the immunity this group had to her sarcasm and wit would push her a little harder.
Her eyes caught on the pretty boy trying to stay quietly to his little corner. An easy target if she had ever seen one. "Let me see. You're probably the worst of them, aren't you?"
He looked shocked that she had even noticed him.
She smirked. This was going to be all too easy. A girl of her talents shouldn't be wasted like this. "You are the person the instructors sent me in here to put in his place, aren't you, hotshot?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
He definitely wasn't a hotshot. She had just said that to be ironic. This boy in front of her might have been something if she had saw him in a crowded bar, but in a Viper, she would be willing to bet that he was nothing special.
"You think that just because I'm not on your squad that I don't watch your sims?" She had to do her best not to laugh out loud. As if she really wasted time watching anyone else's results. "Your team is ragged. There's no flow. If there hadn't been some strange miracle in each one of your flights, you all would have been simulated dead."
She suddenly remembered hearing gossip of a pretty boy who had a knack for flying. Was this wallflower actually the one they were talking about? She shook her head. No way. He couldn't be. "And word is you're the ring leader. How someone who flies so sloppy can lead is beyond me."
"You don't know what you're talking about."
She looked around. No one was standing up for this guy. She was giving him a verbal lashing with no provocation at all, and yet none of his team was watching his back. It almost made her regret what she said next. Almost.
"I bet you think you're some sort of god. That you were destined to be in the sky and that no one can touch you when you're up there. Well, wake up, fly boy. You're not a god."
The look of devastation on his face made her feel suddenly guilty. She hadn't really meant any of the words that came out of her mouth. They were just her only way of infuriating these pilots enough so that they wouldn't ask her questions about why they hadn't been informed of their new team member. She needed to practice against different styles of pilots if she wanted to be the best.
But she couldn't tell this distressed pilot that nor could she apologize, so she found the first empty simulator and slid inside, away from their prying eyes.
Surprisingly, within the first three minutes of the simulation, the panel in front of her reported that only she and the boy whose spirit she had fraked with remained. She chanced a glance at the running tally of stats. Not only was he still active in the simulation but he was keeping up with her in kills. Interesting.
Her hand slipped slightly on the throttle, and her simulated Viper lost a little of its speed. This pretty boy pilot was making her tired. She had been pushing and pushing herself to show the whole team that they were way below her level. She wasn't used to this kind of strain, and now she could feel the fatigue creeping into her bones. But she figured she had enough to finish this last pilot off.
And that's when that one last pilot flipped his Viper straight over hers and began shooting with better accuracy than even the pros she had seen in her day.
Fine. She could play his game. She started rolling and firing, but it seemed like every target she locked had been shot by him only half a second earlier. The asshole had even started to take the targets obviously intended for her.
"Frak!" she screamed into the comm. "What the frak do you think you're doing, you fraking bastard!"
She waited for some snide remark to come flying back, but instead, he just took out a few more of her targets. She bit her lip and set her mind to show him that no one could just trample Kara Thrace like that.
The buzzer rang before she couldn't even get started on vengeance.
She knew that she should feel humiliated. She had taunted the pretty boy without really knowing the story behind him. He had served her ass back to her on a platter. She knew that everyone expected her to jump out of the cockpit and start throwing punches. Normally that was what she would do to teach someone a lesson.
The problem was she didn't feel humiliated.
She felt excited.
She had finally found someone to challenge her. Frak. She had found a pilot who was better than her.
As she got of the cockpit, she heard someone call him Apollo.
Yeah. She could handle that call sign, too.
Before she could go over and congratulate him, her instructor came barreling up. "Thrace."
"Yes, sir?" she said, hesitantly giving him a salute.
"Who told you to do the simulation with this team?"
She let herself have one last look at the only pilot who had put her in her place before turning back to the man in front of her. "Sir. I figured it was time to take your advice. Start practicing and stop bucking for the stars."
Her instructor shook his head with a laugh and motioned for her to start walking.
"Speaking of bucking for the stars, sir, I wanted to talk to you about my call sign."
Kara groaned as she calmly instructed a few of her students that if they didn't want to end up in the brig, they were going to have to learn how to control their liquor. These kids had promise if only they could get their priorities straight.
Oh gods. Had she actually just thought that?
She smiled at the waitress who was walking past before grabbing her bottle off the bar. Women who reduced themselves to wearing tight clothing in order to get a few extra bucks disgusted her. There was so much more they could be doing that didn't involve losing every ounce of self-respect they had.
Her eyes locked on the table where Zak was sitting. He wasn't alone anymore. His brother must have finally showed up. The jerk had kept them waiting long enough. So he was Zak's hero. She didn't care. No one kept Starbuck waiting.
She marched over to the table, catching the tail end of their conversation.
"-one administering tests to me at any point. She just helps me with my flight simulations."
"And boy do you need it," she said with a laugh.
Her jaw dropped as Zak's brother turned around to look at her.
No way. No fraking way.
Zak's brother was the pilot she had flown against in the simulator in those first few months of Academy. The only one who had ever given her a challenge. The one who was christened Apollo mostly because of her.
She had no clue that the mighty Apollo was an Adama. That explained a lot.
At the same time, it explained nothing at all. Because suddenly, everything she had heard about Lee Adama made no sense. She didn't have time to listen to gossip, but this one had been hard to avoid. The whole Academy had been buzzing since practically the day she started with talk of Battlestar Galactica Commander William Adama's oldest son who was supposedly riding on Daddy's coattails.
The man she had flown against definitely had the chops to be in the Viper program. He wasn't there for any reason but his own gods-given talent.
"Hi. I'm Kara," she said, taking a seat next to Zak.
"But you can call her god," Zak quipped smiling at her.
She rolled her eyes at his casual use of her typical first greeting to a new class of nuggets. "Or Starbuck. That's what I'm commonly referred to as."
"Lee," he said, still looking rather shell-shocked. Come to think of it, why was he looking so surprised? What was there for him to be surprised about?
"Most people call my brother, Apollo," Zak said with a smirk.
She found herself resenting the fact that he couldn't have told her that a few minutes earlier. At least then she would have had time to prepare.
In the back of her mind, she found herself wondering why this new development had thrown her off so much. What did it matter if Zak's brother was the one man she had considered her equal? What if he was the one guy she wished there had been more time to get to know during her Viper training? What if the pretty boy was the person she had always secretly wished would someday be her wingman when she got through with this stupid flight instructor assignment?
Zak squeezed her hand, pulling her out of her thoughts. She gave him a small smile and tried to focus on what he was saying.
Frak. This meeting was not going like she had planned.
Kara nervously watched the door. "Why isn't he here yet?"
"Why are you so concerned?" Zak asked, taking her hand in his.
"Because he's the person you look up to the most," she said, biting her lip. "If he tells us he thinks we're making a mistake, we have no chance of convincing your parents that this isn't completely insane."
Zak touched the side of her face lightly. "We're not insane."
She returned his reassuring smile before her eyes drifted the bar.
And there he stood. Lee Adama. Still as much of a pretty flyboy as ever.
"Lee!" she yelled, waving to get his attention.
He froze for a second before making a motion that she guessed was a return wave. She watched as he made his way over to their table. He wasn't acting like she was used to, keeping his eyes low to the ground and not even taking a second glance at the pretty girls who were so blatantly staring him down.
By the time he got to their table, though, the odd behavior had ended. "Again, I find myself answering a cryptic summons from my little brother."
His laugh was a welcome sound to her ears. Which is why she let down her guard and just basked in the familiarity of the situation. "He doesn't have a new girlfriend this time," she said with a laugh, grabbing Zak's hand in hers.
Oh gods. Why had she just said that? She thought she had decided she was going to ease into the news they had to tell Lee.
"No, I don't," Zak said. He tore his eyes away from hers in order to look at Lee. "I have a fiancée."
She choked on her drink at exactly the same moment Lee did. Why did Zak just have to blurt it out like that?
"What did you just say?"
"I asked Kara to marry me yesterday, and she said yes."
She watched as Lee nodded but didn't say a word. She didn't blame him. The news had been sort of sudden considering he hadn't known how much time Zak was spending with her. Granted, War College probably gave him little to no time to do anything other than study and fly. But he still could have tried to make a little time to figure out what his baby brother was doing with his life.
Maybe if Lee had made a little more time, Zak would be better at flying a Viper. As it stood now, there was no way he was going to pass the examinations at the end of the term.
She found herself wondering why Lee hadn't said anything else yet. He was still just sitting there, nodding and staring off into space. Didn't he think it was a good idea? Oh gods. She didn't know what she would do if he started going on about how odd a match it was. As if she hadn't realized how crazy it was for a girl who grew up in the slums of Caprica to be marrying the son of a Battlestar Commander.
"Congratulations."
She smiled. He had finally said it. That meant he was okay with the idea, didn't it?
"I think we need more ambrosia."
Before she could protest, Zak was already halfway to the bar. She was alone with Lee for the first time that she could remember. What the frak was she supposed to say now? Her mind zeroed in on his congratulations. Why had it sounded so fake?
She stared at him for a moment as he purposefully looked anywhere but up at her. "So, you didn't exactly sound thrilled."
"Well, you can only imagine."
Her worst fear was true. Lee didn't think she was good enough to be part of his family. She couldn't let him know how much that hurt. Time for her trademark sarcasm. That always kept the pain from showing. "Yeah. The baby boy of one of the greatest Viper pilots in the history of the Twelve Colonies marrying the trailer trash of Caprica. Sometimes even I don't believe it."
"No. It's not that. It's just… it seemed to me like you had more sense than that."
"I don't understand."
"Well. I assumed that after you finished your assignment as a flight instructor you would be going to War College to obtain an official placement out in the field."
Her mind drifted back to the distant memory of a time when she had dreamed of just that. Saying frak you to the flight instructor life and being a Viper pilot on some distant Battlestar with the man sitting in front of her as her wingman. Gods, she was glad she had never told anyone about that.
She realized that Lee was still talking. "-there's no way Zak's going to make it through Academy. So then, what is he going to do when his wife is stationed on a ship orbiting another planet?"
Something suddenly occurred to her. He had laid out all of the worries she had had in the past few weeks within the last minute. Things that had taken her way too long to come to grips with, and he had just verbalized them like that. "How much thought have you put into this, Lee?"
She saw him pale and start subtly searching the room, presumably for Zak. It gave her a good opportunity to deal with why she was being so defensive. It wasn't that she was afraid of Lee disapproving. No, with her illustrious past, she practically expected it.
What she hadn't expected was how hard it was to talk to him about her relationship with Zak and why she had agreed to marry him. She had thought her reasons were foolproof until this moment with Lee sitting across from her.
Why wasn't Zak back yet? She started scanning the bar for him just like Lee had. Why did Zak always disappear when she needed him most?
She glanced at Lee and the color drained from her face as she realized that he was staring at her. Breaking eye contact, she focused on the new addition to her left hand. This little band of silver meant so much to so many people. She had never understood it.
"How has instructing been going for you?"
His question gave her the relief she had been praying for. This was something that she would have no trouble talking about. "Oh gods. You wouldn't believe the nuggets they send my way. I don't remember ever being that green. The other day one of my students asked me when they were going to be shown how to do all the rolls and flips that the experienced pilots knew. I told him by the time he graduated from my class, he wouldn't need anyone to show him. He would be so good that he would figure it out himself."
She felt herself smiling. She might hate the flight instructor job when she saw those she graduated with moving on to bigger and better missions in the sky. But sometimes… sometimes, she really felt like she was making a difference, teaching these nuggets how to survive.
"There was this one time, Lee, where one of my nuggets told me that he thought he was just as good of a pilot as I was. I told him he hadn't even seen me fly, but the little bastard just kept at it. I guess it serves me right for letting this kids think I was just another one of them. Anyway, I shoved his sorry ass in a simulator and spent the next half hour decimating his poor little virtual Viper."
Zak returned to the table, and she gave him a small smile. "I was just telling Lee about the time I shoved you into a flight simulator and showed you how it was done."
Kara stared at the newly made mound of earth that held the man she loved deep inside. She still couldn't believe that Zak was gone. Just two weeks ago, he had come bursting into her room after his little surprise visit with his brother, declaring his never-ending love for her. He was so vibrant and alive.
She felt the tears before she realized they had begun to fall once more.
Frak. She hadn't wanted to cry while he was still there. He probably thought she didn't know he was standing over her, watching. Damnit. Why did he have to be so protective of her? Hadn't it been enough that William Adama had seen fit to offer her a job as a pilot on his Battlestar as soon as she was done going through officer training? Now his oldest son was making sure that she didn't completely self-destruct.
If only they knew what she had done.
"I know you're there, Lee."
She wiped the tears from her eyes.
"Are you going to be all right?"
She knew he meant that question as one friend looking out for another, but his words only served to anger her.She shrugged his touch off and took a step away. "The man I intended to marry just died, Lee. He died in a fire caused by the Viper I taught him to fly. No. I am definitely not going to be all right."
Gods. She wanted to tell him how it had all been her fault. How Zak had died because she passed him in Basic Flight when he had failed the test in every single way. How the night before she had told him she wasn't sure marriage was the right thing for them to be doing at this time.
But when she looked up at Lee's face and saw only understanding, she knew that she could never tell him.
He was the last piece of Zak she had. She couldn't take it if she lost that right now.
"I'm sorry, Lee. I didn't mean that."
He didn't say a word. Instead, he just took her hand in his and squeezed.
Together, they stared at the grave of the man they both loved more than any other.
Kara groaned and balled up the paper she had been writing on, flinging it across the bunkroom. It rolled around the floor next to the twenty or so other balled up mistakes. She was suddenly regretting being such a coward. It would be so much easier, and probably a lot less wasteful, if she just called him up and ask him how he was doing.
She knew exactly where he would be. With his mother back on Caprica.
Where else would one go to mourn the one year anniversary of your baby brother's death?
Sighing, she put the pen back down to a fresh piece of paper and tried again.
Dear Lee,
Could she actually use such a familiar greeting? She hadn't talked to him in almost a year. Frak it. She didn't care.
I just wanted to let you know that I was thinking about you on this hard day.
Hard day? What the frak was that?
I just wanted to let you know that I was thinking about you. Actually, I've thought about you a lot. Wondering how you were doing on Atlantia and whether you were still being the quiet kid in the corner who was phenomenally better than anyone else.
Okay. That didn't sound like she had been stalking him in Academy. Nope. Not at all.
We shouldn't have let things go like we did, Lee. I didn't know you before Zak, but I know you now. And I never thanked you for what you did for me that day in the cemetery when we buried
Buried? How heartless was that?
when we were mourning together. It meant a lot to me then. It still means a lot to me. Why didn't we fraking keep in touch?
Great. Now she was swearing at him.
We could have been each other's support system. You could have taught me how to fit in on a Battlestar. You know this is my first assignment off planet. I wasn't used to having so many pilots like me within reach. It would have been nice to know if you had gone through the same thing.
Okay. Enough rambling. Close it up.
I miss you, Lee. Love, Kara.
Love? Love? Where the frak had that come from?
And I miss you? She hadn't known Lee long enough to miss him.
But for some reason, she knew that she did. She did miss him.
"Lieutenant Thrace, you have a call," Dee's voice rang through the bunkroom over the private intercom. The phone on the wall next to the table she was writing on started to ring.
"Lieutenant Thrace speaking."
There was only dead air. If this was that damn annoying Raptor ECO, Karl something or another, annoying her, she was going to kill him.
"Hello? Is there anyone fraking there?"
Still no answer. And then she remembered that it had been Dee's voice informing her of the call and not the usual voice of Second Petty Officer Tanner.
"Damnit, Dee. If you even cut off another call for me, I'm going to personally march myself down to CIC and show you how it's done."
She heard the line cut off completely and set the receiver down. Her eyes fell on the finished letter in front of her. Groaning, she balled the paper up and chucked it across the room.
Time for attempt number twenty-two.
In the back of her mind, she knew that it wouldn't be successful. And neither would attempt twenty-three or twenty-four. She could write a million letters, and they would never be good enough to send.
"Lieutenant Thrace to Hangar Bay B."
Groaning, she threw the pad of paper and pen onto her bunk. The letter that would never get written would have to wait until later.
Kara was taken aback as Lee told her not to even start as their conversation shifted to the topic of his father. She stared at him through the bars of the cell she had been calling home all day. Gods. She had forgotten how infuriating Zak's older brother could be.
"How long are you doing to do this?" she hissed quietly, knowing that there were plenty of crewmen around somewhere who would know what she and the Commander's elder son were arguing about. Zak's death was not a topic that was openly discussed on Galactica, but it wasn't one that was kept hidden.
"I'm not doing anything," he hissed back.
"He lost his son, Lee."
She felt herself freeze at her casual use of his name. She had tried so hard for the past two years to keep him at a distance. To only refer to him as Captain Adama. To not admit to anyone, including herself, that he was more than that.
His words cut into her thoughts. "And who's responsible for that?"
She stared at his face as he looked at her. It was so hardened and cold. Not a thing like the pretty flyboy she had seen in Academy. Not a thing like the busy man who had taken time to meet his baby brother's new girlfriend. Not the man who had held her as her grief took over the day she buried her life along with the man she loved.
He had changed so much from the Lee she had known. The one she had grown to care for in all the smallest, inconspicuous ways, he was gone. Instead, there was this tough, cynical military pilot who didn't seem to understand one thing about human nature anymore.
"Same old Lee," she choked out. "You haven't changed either."
"Zak was my brother!" he screamed.
The words cut through her and made her realize she had been right. Lee was gone. "What was he to me? Nothing?"
"That's not what I meant. And you know it."
Suddenly she couldn't even bear to look at the man she had been dying to see for over two years. "You know what? You should go." She tightened her fists. "I'm getting the urge to hit another superior asshole."
He gave her a smile that cut to the bone and walked away without another word.
Gods. That had hurt.
"Hey."
She froze mid screw underneath the Viper that had been her personal punching bag for the last half hour and wheeled herself out from underneath the machine. It hadn't been in her head. He was really there. She found herself wondering if he was a ghost.
Then he reached out and grabbed her hand, helping her to her feet. The breath she had been holding left her lungs in a rush as she realized that she could finally dare to hope he had made it out of that horrible Cylon attack alive. "I thought you were dead," she spit out.
Nice, Thrace. Way to tell him that you were praying to the gods harder than you had ever prayed in order to ask that they keep you in their protection. Very smooth phrasing.
He smirked at her, though, obviously not offended by her blunt words. "Well I thought you were in hack."
"It's goo-" She cleared her throat as she felt tears of joy begin to choke up inside her. "It's good to be wrong."
At least that one sounded a lot more like what she was really feeling.
"Well, you should be used to it by now."
All right. Now she had a dilemma. She either wanted to pull him into a massive hug at the sight of that arrogant grin on his face or she wanted to deck him so that it would be wiped clean off. She decided neither option was plausible if she wanted to stay out of the brig. "Everyone had a skill."
Then they bridged into silence, their eyes bearing into each other. She suddenly felt naked. Why was he staring at her so intently? And why did it remind her of the way Zak used to look at her after they… well, the morning after.
And just like that he broke the intimacy of their contact by looking away. "So… so how… how go the repairs?"
Was the perfect Captain Adama actually struggling for words? Suddenly things were looking up. She hadn't had such a promising target for her taunts and jokes since Helo. Frak. Don't think about him now. He wasn't here anymore. Focus on the fact that Lee was here. "On track. Another hour and she'll be ready to launch."
And suddenly the first taunt popped into her head. Yeah. Things were looking up even though there had just been an armageddon tearing its way through humanity.
"So I guess you're the new CAG now."
Kara continued screaming at her asshole of an Executive Officer. Why the frak was he screwing with her when he knew the Old Man had practically ordered her not to leave Lee behind? Granted, she hadn't planned on it even before it had been an unofficial official order, but Tigh didn't know that.
Tigh's continued yelling that she could have gotten herself killed for no good reason suddenly made her want to cry. It wasn't like she didn't know the reality of the situation. She knew the day she signed up to be a Viper pilot that her life would exist from one close call to the next. One of these days the call wouldn't be a little too close and she would be gone.
But that wasn't why her emotions were starting to overwhelm her.
Her eyes locked onto Lee's where he stood in front of his Viper. There were noticeable rips and tears to his flight uniform that must have happened upon their hard impact with the hanger tube deck. He looked genuinely shell shocked for the first time since their whole race had been systematically exterminated by the toasters. She knew it wasn't because of his near-death experience either.
She would bet all her money on the fact that he was relieving her last confession in the hangar bay before they took off. He was wondering why she had found the courage to save him when she was too much of a coward to do what was right and save Zak.
Not even she could give him an answer to that.
All she had thought in those few moments up in the sky when she believed she was going to lose Lee was she couldn't let it happen again. She couldn't let the Old Man's only son be taken away. Another Adama was not going to die when she could save him.
She returned to yelling at Tigh. She didn't want to think about how close she had come to losing him.
And she didn't want to dwell on the reasons why losing Lee seemed like just about the worst thing that could have happened to her.
Kara stepped away from Cally and looked at her wounded bird. She had run it into the ground during the 200 or so launches she had done in the past five days. It would only get worst, too. She should just be grateful that she was still able to get the Mark II into the air. It hadn't seen this kind of beating since the first Cylon War.
And why the frak was she thinking about that at a time like this?
"Because you're in the middle of the second Cylon War, you idiot," she hissed at herself.
"Lieutenant Thrace." She turned her attention back to the demure Specialist who was one of the few people she respected enough to allow unlimited access to her Viper. "Um… I was just wondering… well… don't you think you might have been a little too hard on the Captain? He only wanted you to take a few pills."
"I'm going to let that little comment slide because I know you're just as tired and rundown as I am."
Cally's eyes went wide as she realized how out of place her comment had been. "I'm sorry."
"Not a problem. Because I'm so tired and I obviously don't know any better, I'm going to answer you." Kara gave her a wry smile. "I am hard on Captain Adama because he needs someone to be. He has lived his life too easily, riding on the fact that he's the son of a military commander."
She cringed inside. She couldn't believe she was taking up the excuse that all those ridiculous idiots in Academy had used whenever they had to explain why they felt it necessary to give Lee a hard time. But she couldn't go and tell Cally that she was hard on Lee because she knew he was going to make a damn fine CAG as soon as he accepted that the job was his.
Cally seemed to accept her lie of an answer and went off to use her thirty-three minutes wisely. Maybe the kid would actually be allowed a small nap this time.
Shrugging her flight suit off, Kara made the decision to work on her bird while those damn pills began to kick in. Soon she would be too jumpy to help the crew with their burden.
The burden of living.
That was the worst.
It was hard to keep going on this fraking thirty-three minute cycles.
That was really why she had been so hard on Lee. Sure, it had partially been because she knew he needed someone to shock him into doing his job right. Because men like Lee were cut out to lead. They just needed a little instruction from time to time. She had learned that in her time with the Old Man.
But the Old Man had never worried her as much as Lee did. Which brought her back to her real reasoning behind the screaming and yelling. If she kept him either angry at her words or laughing at her stupidity, then he wouldn't start to wonder if maybe it would all be easier just to give up and let the Cylons take him this cycle.
She was well aware that she was clinging to him. He was a thread to the innocent, naïve life she had led before losing Zak. He reminded her of those days in the Academy when she still believed she could raise herself up to the highest levels in the military.
And there was something in the way he smiled at her when he thought she wasn't looking.
Something that she couldn't put words to. All she knew was that little smile meant to go unnoticed was what kept her from surrendering to the temptation of letting a Cylon take one well-aimed shot at her.
Kara stared through the scope on her gun as the pandemonium her gunshot had caused slowly died down. At first, she had been angry at Lee for screwing up her one chance to get rid of the humanity's last real criminal. After swearing for a minute straight, she had calmed down and taken a look at the scene unfolding below her.
Lee was talking to the prisoners and Zarek. Whatever he was saying was keeping the situation calm. She looked at Cally, who lay bleeding on the cot in the cell. She was going to be okay. The kid was tough. Hell. It looked like she had bit some prisoner's ear off. Exaggerations of what had happened would make her the second toughest woman left in the Fleet.
She heard someone yelling into the ear piece about the fact that there still was no medical attention available. Kara shrugged it off. Like she had said, Cally was tough. She'd tough it out until someone got here.
The next person she focused on from her vantage point was Zarek, who was sitting crouched on the floor. He looked like he was crying. Pathetic. Lee shouldn't have saved him.
Why did Lee save him? She couldn't remember one reason why he might have sympathized with the known terrorist. Lee had always seemed the type of guy who ran the straight and narrow. Life was black and white. There was no such thing as grey.
But saving Tom Zarek was as grey as it got.
She trained her sight onto Lee even as the Marine team leader started screaming for her to get down to prison level to help contain the residents of the Astral Queen. He was pretty beaten up, and she could practically taste the mental fatigue written all over his face. Whatever Zarek had said to him, whatever had been done to him, it wasn't just going to go away when they got him off this ship.
Lee wasn't invincible. The wounds on his head where he must have been so brutally beaten practically screamed it at her. He could be hurt. He could be killed.
And there was nothing she could do about it.
Kara felt herself drop the gun and go running. They needed her down on the prison deck. Her sudden urge to follow orders had nothing to do with having to reassure herself that Lee was all right.
"FRAK!" Kara yelled as the Cylon Raider sputtered to a dead silence.
She had almost had it. Power was up and running. She had pitch. She had yaw. Why the frak couldn't she get roll?
"FRAK!" she screamed again.
She could not die this way. The great Starbuck did not crash land on some filthy planet that wasn't even good enough for cockroaches to live on. She went out in a blaze of glory. She didn't suffocate to death when all the oxygen in an enemy aircraft ran out because she couldn't get fraking roll.
She punched the guts of the Raider and felt a satisfying ripple run through the ship around her. "Yeah, that's right! I'm talking to you, you putrid piece of crap!"
She brought the power back up with her left heel. This ship was going to be her saving grace. It was going to be her ticket back home to Galactica. She would be going home, and it would be taking her there.
Then she would be able to fix the mess she had made before leaving. She would train those nuggets to the point of exhaustion, but when she was done they would be the best pilots the Old Man had ever seen. Then maybe he could realize how much she had changed since Zak died. Then maybe he could look past his anger and see that she was dying inside with guilt.
Adama hadn't held any anger against Lee who so obviously had accused him falsely of pushing Zak to his death. He would forgive her eventually. He had to.
She was holding on to that thought just as tightly as she was holding on to the belief that the Old Man had sent someone after her. There had to be Vipers in the air right now searching this planet for her. He might have insinuated that he was washing his hands of her, but he wouldn't actually leave her for dead. They had gone through too much together.
Don't forget Lee.
Lee already knew the mistakes you've made. You told him weeks ago, and he still chose to talk to you. He still chose to treat you like you were worthwhile. He wouldn't let his father be stubborn enough to let you go without at least attempting to save you.
Lee cared for you too much, Kara.
"What the frak are you saying?" she asked herself quietly as she fiddled with the stringy tendons that were near her right hand. "He cares for you? How do you know that he cares for you? You're nothing more than his brother's old girlfriend."
Her hand faltered as she realized what she had said. His brother's old girlfriend. Not the other way around. She identified Zak as being Lee's brother. She didn't think of Lee as just being Zak's brother. When had she started thinking of Zak only as an offshoot of Lee?
That was another thought for another day. Preferably one in which she wasn't marooned on a planet with only three of the four fundamentals of flying at her disposal.
"You will roll for me," she said, punching the Raider again.
Kara stared in confusion as Lee turned around in circles as he entered the bunkroom. She had seen a lot of jittery pilots in her days, but never Lee. It wasn't in his genetic makeup to be spooked. She watched as he let out a sigh of relief and sat down on his bunk. He looked exhausted in every sense of the term.
"Frak me! What happened to you?"
Lee jumped off the bed and made a motion to pull a gun from the holster around his belt that wasn't there.
Gods. He was tense. He couldn't even remember that he was in his dress blues and not his flight suit.
She pushed up off her bed and walked over to him. "It's just me. Relax. It's not like I'm a Cylon coming to get you."
"Not funny," Lee hissed as he sat down and tried to make his breathing return to normal.
"What's got you so wired? Because if I find out there is some source of caffeine still in this universe and I didn't know about it, shit is going to hit the fraking fan."
"No. It's not that. It's Ell-"
"What were you saying?"
She could see realization dawn on Lee's face as he realized he had gone too far. Whatever had scared him was also making him sloppy. "It's the XO's wife."
"She trying to kill you?"
"If you mean death by appealing to a man's sex-starved libido, then yes, she is definitely trying to kill me."
"No way! Ellen Tigh is hitting on you!"
"That's putting it lightly," Lee said as she slid off his coat, not even taking the time to hang it up. The piece of clothing ended up in a pile next to his bed as he stretched out on the bed again. "The woman practically molested me underneath the table while we were having dinner. With the President present, no less."
Kara's eyes widened as she imagined what Lee was referring to. Wow. The Old Man had been right. Ellen Tigh was pure evil. "Do you need me to protect you from her?"
"Frak off, Kara. She just made me jumpy. She didn't make me a coward that has to hide behind the local frak-up."
"Hey! I resent that." She walked over and sat down on Lee's bed. "I'm the galactic frak-up now. We're the only humans left in the universe."
"How could I forget?"
Kara sat in silence, staring down at Lee who was now hiding his eyes behind his hands. "Lee?"
"Please don't make fun of me anymore. I can't take it right now."
"I wasn't going to. I just wanted to know… well… did you like it?"
He threw his hands down to his sides and gave her a funny look. "What do you mean?"
Gods, she hated it when she got so curious about things she had no business knowing. "I mean, you must have been getting lonely, being all alone here in space. For one second, if you forgot that it was Tigh's wife, did you enjoy it?"
"No," he said resolutely. "Not for one second."
"Because it was Tigh's wife."
"No. Because it wasn't--" His eyes widened in horror at what he had been about to say.
"Wasn't?" she prompted.
"I am not talking about this anymore."
"Oh come on. You were about to tell me something. It's not good to let things sit on your chest."
He shook his head and she swore silently to herself. It was killing her not to know what he was going to say. Because she really wanted the words her wild imagination had cooked up to finish his sentence to be true.
She bit her lip and stared down at him. Come on, Lee. Do a girl a favor and not make this hard. Can't you just admit that you might have been saying that you didn't enjoy it because it wasn't me?
He sighed and sat up. "Because it was just about the worst scenario possible. Ellen Tigh. My father and President Roslin sitting a few feet away. Enjoying it wasn't even an option."
"Oh."
"Why? What did you think I was going to say?"
She had to think fast. "I thought that maybe you were about to admit that you actually had romantic feelings towards someone on this ship. We don't get enough of the tortured love gossip. It would have been nice."
"No such luck."
Yeah, tell me about it, she thought to herself.
Kara heard herself telling him that he would be just fine, but she knew they both were aware that she wasn't exactly believing herself. The darkness of the main projector room on Galactica should at least help mask some of the lie even if he could still hear it in her voice.
"Look," Apollo said, glaring at her, "you're worried that I'm not going to pull it out of the fire with some high-risk, retina-detaching move the way Starbuck would. Well, Kara, I'm sorry you're not suiting up. Because, believe me, everyone will feel so much better, me included, if you were riding along with us. But this isn't an ego trip. This is my job. And don't think for one moment that I will not get it done."
Gods. He really thought she had no faith in him. Well, she might as well seal the deal. "I hope so. Because we've got one shot. Don't frak it up by over thinking."
Seeing the look of devastation come across his face, she turned on heel and left him alone. When she reached the hall, she leaned herself up against the first out of the way nook and tried to catch her breath.
The memory of the first time she saw that look was haunting her. It was the day she had taken him on unofficially in the flight simulator at Academy, and he had wiped the floor with her. She had made him angry, and it pushed him to be a better pilot.
Thoughts of that day had been popping up at the most random times since she had first found out Lee was going to lead the squadron of Vipers into battle. She hadn't been sure of why until only moments before she asked Lee to stay after the briefing.
She smacked her fists against the wall in front of her face in frustration as she felt herself suddenly feel the desperate need to cry. It had been hard, but she had done what she came there to do. She had given him the motivation he would need to get the job done. Like always, the Fleet was in good hands.
The hands of a god to be precise.
He practically flew out of the cockpit to bask in the praise of his fellow pilots. He had pulled off an impossible plan that she wasn't even sure she could have done. He had pushed himself outside the box and saved all of humanity.
Not bad for one day's work.
Kara watched him pull Cally into a full hug. He must be pretty happy if he was so obviously willing to violate the fraternization policy that seemed to be the law by which he lived. She should know. She kept a close enough watch.
"Apollo, you magnificent bastard! That was one hell of a piece of flying, and I couldn't have done it better myself."
He feigned like he hadn't heard her over the chaos around. "I'm sorry. I didn't hear you."
Okay. After what she put him through, he deserved to hear it twice. "I said I couldn't have done it better myself."
"Well, thank you," he said, toasting his drink at her.
"I had my doubts," she admitted. That was close enough to the truth. She didn't doubt his flying ability. She doubted her plan.
"So did I." She gave him a look of surprise. No way would the Lee she knew have let her lack of faith transfer into his own feelings of inadequacy. "I wasn't sure that crazy ass plan of yours could even possibly work."
Okay. Guess the feelings of her own inadequacy were mutual. She could live with that. She could live with anything if it meant he would go on smiling like that. For once it didn't seem like he had the weight of their world and the next on his shoulders.
"You deserve this," she said, holding a cigar out to him. She hoped he wouldn't notice it was the same brand that his father smoked. If he ever found out she had given him her welcome home present from flying that Cylon Raider back to the Fleet, she would never live it down.
He didn't notice.
She watched as he smoked and laughed with those around him. And it was at that moment, when she had forgotten about the Cylons, forgotten about the upcoming Quorum of Twelve, forgotten about the fact that her knee was still screwed up and she couldn't fly, and yes, even forgotten about Zak and the role he still played in her life… It was at that moment that she realized why everyone had doubted Lee.
Her presence in his life was holding him back. Having Starbuck as a friend was like shoving yourself as far away from the spotlight as you could.
He was better than her, and they both knew it. But that knowledge ended there. With the possible exception of the Old Man, no other person understood why Lee was the right choice for CAG and the right choice to go on this mission. No one understood how lucky they were that he had been on board Galactica when the Cylons chose to attack.
She stared at his blatant happiness for a moment before fading away into the background. Let him enjoy his day in the sun. And maybe it will last past the point when she got back into the sky.
Gods. She wanted that to last for him.
Lee's words rang through her ears as she made her way back to the shuttle that would take her to the Quorum on Cloud Nine. He had practically accused her of being some sort of dirty slob who wouldn't know how to clean herself up if it was a matter of life or death. He had meant it in joking, but it still kind of stung.
Trying to remember, she guessed he had never really seen her when she was out of the normal regulation clothing that military gave them. Though she had always thought she looked just fine when she wore that little zip-up green hoodie and left out the double tanks. She had caught many a male pilot on Galactica staring at how nice and clean the hoodie made her… eyes look.
Fine. If Lee wanted to know what he was missing, she would show him.
She waltzed over and picked up the first service phone she saw. "CIC," she heard Dee's familiar voice say.
"Dee, it's Starbuck. I need you to do me a favor. Word on the ship is there's a big celebration going down after the election, and it can't be stopped even if Zarek wins. I need a dress for it."
"A dress? But I thought dress blues were acceptable for you officers."
"They are. I just don't want to wear them."
"Does this have something to do with a certain Captain?"
Kara's heart froze. Gods. Was she that obvious? "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"I saw you staring at Captain Holt the other day in the mess."
At first, she had no idea what Dee was talking about. But then she remembered the Captain in question having eaten a rather disgusting slop of whatever they were calling a meal that day. He had gotten it all over him, and yet no one was pointing it out. She couldn't help but stare. "Dee, I really don't want to talk about it."
"All right. I'll see what I can do."
Kara hung up the phone with a satisfying smack. Take that, Lee!
She let out a small laugh before it suddenly occurred to her that she had no idea why it was so important that she show Lee how wrong he was about her hygiene. When had she started carrying about her appearance in that way?
About the time the Twelve Colonies were decimated and a certain Captain got stranded on your ship, you self-deluded moron.
She really hated that nagging voice in her head that always told the truth.
Kara had thrown caution to the wind after downing her fourth glass of ambrosia and let Lee lead her onto the dance floor. If she couldn't do this now with the perfect excuse of blaming it on the alcohol in the morning, when could she do it?
Surprisingly, he didn't protest nor did he push her away as she rested her head on his shoulder. His arms wrapped themselves around her and held her in close.
And suddenly she was scared to death. She hadn't known it was possible to be this happy.
She hadn't felt like this. Not even with Zak.
Zak. Oh gods. She had forgotten. Oh gods. Oh gods. This was wrong. She had to pull away from Lee. She had to stop thinking about how happy she was. About how happy he made her. Happiness only led to heartache for a girl like her. Oh gods. She didn't want to kill Lee. Frak. How could she possibly save him from herself?
Before she could come up with a solution, Dr. Baltar stepped forward and asked to cut in. When she saw the relieved look on Lee's face, she realized that the whole moment between them must have been entirely in her head.
Good. It was easier that way.
But when Dr. Baltar pulled her close and she closed her eyes to the world, she couldn't lie to herself. She was wishing that Lee hadn't left.
But he had left her, hadn't he?
And she wasn't afraid to admit how much that hurt.
Gaius. Dr. Baltar. Dr. Gaius Baltar. Gaius. Gaius. Gaius.
How come every time she said his name Lee's image was still the one she saw in her head?
She had no idea why she was connecting the two men. They were nothing the same.
Lee. Gaius.
Nope. They didn't even sound the same.
There was no way to pawn it off. Her body had been in bed with one man while her mind was in bed with the other.
She passed one of her fellow pilots in the hall and gave him a mock salute with one hand while still holding her dress up with the other. There would be a lot of questions for her for the rest of the day. No one in the Fleet could turn down the opportunity to spread a little bit of good gossip.
And it wasn't everyday that the almighty Starbuck hustled down the halls in a half-worn dress looking like she had spent the whole night fraking the new Vice President of the Twelve Colonies.
Even after she had made her way to the bunkroom, she still couldn't figure out why she had said Lee's name. True, there had been a lot of ambrosia going around the night before, and she had spent a lot of time with Lee. But she wasn't stupid. The alcohol had worn off by the wee hours of the morning. And Lee had so callously left her in the hands of Baltar hours before.
Gods. She couldn't believe it. She had been thinking about Lee the whole time, as if it was he touching her in all the right places and not the new Vice-President. She had been closing her eyes and picturing the way her legs would wrap around his body, urging him closer. And she had been moaning his name in the hopes that the Lee in her mind would turn out to be the man in her… well… body.
Then, she had opened her eyes and realized that she was a fraking moron.
Shrugging out of the dress and throwing on her usual tanks and sweats, she slid into bed.
Sleep might help her avoid the problem for a little while.
And that was what she was best at. Avoidance.
Her eyes drifted over to Lee's bunk. The curtain was shut, denying her the information of whether or not he was inside.
She rolled her eyes and scolded herself silently. And what if he was inside, Kara? What the frak would you do? Pull back the curtain and join him? Tell him the funny story about how you were fraking the Vice President and said his name? Admit that you were hurt when he just handed you over the night before on Cloud Nine? Just throw caution to the mind and assault his body with your tongue? Admit that you have been confused about your feelings for him since he walked into that bar on Picon all those years earlier?
It was official, she decided as she slid her curtain closed to hide from the outside world. She was pitiful.
Pilot who couldn't keep her pants on?
Was that really all he thought of her? After all they had been through together?
Kara rubbed the bruise that was already forming on her jaw and hissed in pain. He sure hadn't forgotten how to hit.
Frak. She should have known after that little show of domination by Dr. Baltar in the pilot ready room that Lee would figure out what he was referring to. At least, he would figure out the parts already known by the notorious gossips of the Fleet, and those would probably only be the parts Dr. Baltar wished to divulge to others.
That other part. The important part. The part that had made her flee Gaius's room like there was a herd of Cylons coming for her. Lee would never, ever, ever know about that.
Kara toyed with the tools in front of her, unconsciously lining them up in order of their scarcity in the new world that couldn't reproduce tools. Maybe if she just told him what she had said when Gaius was… well, when she was… when they were…
"Frak. I can't even think it," she said, rolling her eyes and pushing the tools back into one big pile. "How the hell am I supposed to say it to him?"
She knew she had to do something, though. He was hurt. Gods know why, but he was hurt by what she had done. Like all her other screw-ups, she wasn't going to rest until she fixed this. She just hoped it wouldn't take two years like her last mistake which had managed to horribly divide a father and his son.
First off, things were not going to get better if she just sat here and lost herself in her thoughts. She needed to stop worrying about how bad of a mess she had gotten into and focus on the things that she would actually need to begin repairing the damage.
She hated to admit it but she would actually need Gaius Baltar back aboard Galactica if she wanted to be successful in her little repair mission. Lee probably wouldn't believe a word of what she was going to tell him if Baltar wasn't right there to admit his humiliation or to back up her story.
Wait. Would a proud man like the good doctor really readily admit his humiliation?
Kara flexed the muscles in her hand. Baltar would admit whatever the frak she wanted him to.
Because she had not forgotten how to punch either.
The words echoed through Kara's ear.
I'm really sorry. I'm really sorry. I'm really sorry.
How cowardly did they sound?
She couldn't have said that she frakked up. That she hadn't meant to take home the first warm body that showed interest. That the whole point of the night hadn't been for her to quench her sexual thirst with whomever was available.
But then, the truth had never really worked out for her when it came to Lee. She had been lying to him from practically the first moment they spoke. It was a part of who they were.
Why hadn't she been able to tell him the truth this one time?
That the only reason she went with Baltar was because she couldn't go with him.
If for one glimmer of a second it had been possible…
Needless to say, she wouldn't have gone with the Galactica's resident crazy.
Biting her lip, she stared at the empty space Lee had occupied seconds earlier. The Marines were still posted, keeping an eye on the Cylon Raider. For as much as her boy was being watched, you would have thought it was made out of solid gold. Or solid nicotine and ambrosia, seeing as how they were much more precious in these times than something silly as gold.
She grabbed the wrench that she had been using to tighten a few of the bolts and got back to work. She would have time to dwell on how much of a coward she was when it came to Lee later.
Turning to look at the door Lee had rushed out of one last time, she frowned as she saw Billy Keikeya waving at her. "President Roslin wishes to speak to you immediately if you're not otherwise engaged, Lieutenant Thrace."
She had no idea what the frak was going on, but if Billy was talking in such a formal manner, it must be big. Sighing she figured the repairs could wait. She would have to fix the Raider and her personal life at some other time.
"Well, I guess keeping our collective asses far, far away from the Cylons isn't that important," she yelled to Billy even though he was already out the door.
It seemed like everyone was running from her voice these days.
Kara tried with all her might to get her body to shift off the machine dead beneath her. Her arms cooperated, but her legs would have nothing to do with it. Letting the pain wash over her, she found her mind focusing on the little piece of metal lying between her fallen opponent and her own badly beaten body.
This was what had caused her life to turn to shambles in less than twenty-four hours.
It hadn't broken in the fall. She didn't know what she would have done if it had. She would have traveled millions of miles just to break the thing she had been sent to retrieve. Not even she could be that big of a screw-up.
Actually, there were quite a few people she loved who would argue that she could be that big of a screw-up.
There was something metallic in her mouth. It took her a second longer than normal to recognize the taste of her own blood. It shouldn't have taken her that long. She was off. Guess fighting a Cylon will do that, she thought.
Her neck could shift a few inches. That was a good sign.
The last time she had been this badly injured was--
No. Don't think about him.
She found herself asking why. Why couldn't she think about Lee? If not now as she lay incapacitated on top of a dead toaster knowing there was no way she could get out of this situation, then when?
She was tired of having to tell herself not to think about him. Not to think about how much he meant to her. Not to think about how much he stood for. How much she needed him and how much he didn't need her.
It hurt.
Pain. At least she could still feel the pain inside her.
Lee's face wouldn't leave her head. She kept imagining what he would be doing at this moment as she began to give up the invincible spirit she never thought she'd lose. On a normal day, he would probably be doing his best to cover for her with the rest of the pilots. She had just taken an important piece of military equipment and jumped home.
Home. That was an odd way of putting it.
Caprica wasn't anyone's home anymore, least of all hers. It hadn't been her home for two years.
It was still Lee's home, though, in a way. He had never found his place on Atlantia like she had on Galactica. He had told her that himself only a few days earlier.
Lee. It always came back to him, didn't it?
Perfect, by-the-rules Lee.
He was probably now devising some strategy to rescue the stranded crew down on Kobol. He would be flying flights to figure out how big a force of Cylons they had to fight and how they could do it without their ace-in-the-hole Cylon Raider. He would be working himself to death to make sure they had the right men and equipment to get the job done and done right. He would be at President Roslin's side advising and his own father's side pointing out the mistakes.
A peacekeeper to the end.
One thing he would not be doing is thinking of her. There would be no exhaustive search for the missing Starbuck. Lee hated her, and the Old Man had made it blatantly clear that the Fleet was more important than doing the right thing by her.
The memory of Lee's face when she had apologized stayed in her head. He hadn't looked glad that she had humbled herself for his benefit. He just looked tired.
She had made him tired. Perfect Lee who strove so hard to be a good CAG and a good pilot and a good son and a good friend. She had destroyed him slowly and surely since the day they had first met.
Lee had given up on her in that one sad, tired look. And if he didn't believe in her, then there sure as hell was no chance she believed that this imperfect Viper pilot who always beat the odds could accomplish the impossible one last time
She would show him though. If he didn't care whether she lived or died beyond the sheer fact that if she died the Fleet will have lost another pilot, then she would just show him how invaluable she was as that one pilot. He couldn't hate the pilot that brought hope back to a humanity that didn't even know they had lost it.
Groaning, she finally pushed the thoughts of Lee out of her head and forced herself to limp to her feet. Reassuring hands gripped her body and helped her up.
For one brief second, she thought that Lee had come for her after all.
But of course, that was ridiculous.