Kara had been watching the shadow underneath her curtain grow and fall. Someone was obviously debating whether or not to bother her. She felt herself smile. It was probably a smart decision to think twice about coming in here. She hadn't been in a good mood for quite a while now.
Her smile couldn't help but widen as her curtain drew open to show it had been Helo pacing outside. "Well, Karl! I do believe I thought you were dead."
"I've been busy, Kara," he said, glaring at her. "The CAG and the lead pilot got themselves a little mini-vacation, and it seems like all of the sudden I'm one of the most experienced pilots the Air Group has. And by the way, can I ask what the frak you did to those nuggets? All I've been hearing for days is how a Raptor pilot has no idea how to understand a bunch of Viper hotheads. Have you been badmouthing my birds again?"
"We both know Raptor pilots are simply the ones who couldn't hack it at Viper."
Helo rolled his eyes. "Did it ever occur to you that I might have chosen not to be a Viper pilot? That maybe flying a Raptor was what I wanted to do? Not everyone lives for the feel of a double barrel roll."
"But if you do, there's no escaping it," Kara said, closing her eyes and leaning back in bed. "Gods! When the frak am I going to get out of here?"
Helo perched on the side of the bed. "You got shot, Kara. Recovery takes a while. It's not like you can fly a ship anyway."
"I could help out the Chief or something. I hate not being able to help."
"We hate not having you there," Helo said softly.
Her eyes snapped open. "Are things really that bad?"
"They've gotten better since Apollo took over."
Kara's face lit up with confusion. "He's not in sickbay?"
"No, Cottle released him two days ago. I thought you knew."
Kara shifted uncomfortably and lowered her eyes to look at her hands. "I haven't spoken to him in a week," she admitted.
"Gods," Helo said, shaking his head. "Last I heard, you two were joined at the hip in this place. What happened?"
Kara knew it was mean, but she couldn't control her unconscious need to defer her pain onto someone else's shoulders. It was the way she kept herself functioning. "The same thing that happened to you and Sharon when we got back from our little rescue mission on Picon, Karl."
Helo raised his eyebrow. "One of you got thrown in a cell so that the only way the other could speak with her is through a thick pane of glass and two telephone receivers?"
She rolled her eyes. She should have known Helo would see right through her attempts to take the attention off her own deficiencies. "How is the cyborg child anyway?"
"I wish you wouldn't call my child that, Kara."
"Tiny toaster?"
Helo rolled his eyes. "They're both doing fine. I'm still worried that the Commander is going to think twice about his decision to keep them alive. Even hearing the word airlock makes me nervous these days."
Kara rested her hand on top of his. "Don't worry. The Old Man understands the risks Sharon took when she chose to lead us through the eleven colonies. After all, he risked his family, too, in that mission."
"About the Commander's family, you never told me what changed between the Old Man's son and yourself."
"I don't know," Kara lied, quickly looking away from Helo. She didn't want to remember why Lee had stopped speaking to her. She wasn't strong enough yet. "Listen, Helo. I'm kind of tired."
Even if Helo hadn't known Kara as well as he did, he wouldn't have argued. Anyone could see she was a woman on the verge of an emotional breakdown. "Don't let me keep you," he joked while stepping to his feet. "I'll be sure to come back later today to make sure you haven't gone stir crazy."
Kara gave him a small smile and kept it glued to her face until she was alone again. Her whole demeanor shifted as an intense sadness washed over her. Lee had gotten out of sickbay and she hadn't even known. He had been free to do whatever her wanted, and what he wanted was obviously not to see her. She wasn't hiding. She was stuck in a fraking hospital bed.
Her mind went back to the last conversation she had had with him. She had been a fool to think it would end in something other than frustration and guilt. She had thought telling him she had given up on Anders might start to repair the broken pieces of their friendship. She had hoped she might finally get an answer to why she had chosen Lee to be her rock without even knowing it.
The little girl inside of her had dreamed of a moment out of the movies where Lee turned to her and said that he loved her, that he had always loved her. She had let herself believe that maybe he shared her theory that there could be no one else that fit him so perfectly.
Yet the truth was slowly killing her fantasy. A man who couldn't live without her wouldn't be avoiding her.
Kara couldn't figured out what she had done wrong. She had told him what Anders had done. She had done her best to let him know that she really didn't even care. The one thing she hadn't told him was no matter how hard she had tried to be with Anders, her heart wasn't in it. She could have spent years forcing it, but she still couldn't make herself happy. It had taken her a long time to get past the horrible words her mother beat into her when she was little, but she finally understood that she had a right to want to be as happy as humanly possible. In fact, she probably deserved it because of what she had gone through.
She let out a loud groan. "You're an idiot, Thrace, if you actually thought a man like that could love someone like you."
"I think you're being a little hard on yourself, sir."
Kara turned to glare at where Racetrack was standing. "What do you want?" she growled.
"I wanted to apologize, Starbuck."
"Fine. You're forgiven. Get the frak out of my sight."
Racetrack looked scared, but somehow she stood her ground. "I never meant to steal him away from you."
Kara let out an exaggerated laugh. "Honey, don't think for one moment you could steal anything away from me! I let him go."
"Either way, I never meant for you to get hurt in this. I know that you've had to handle a lot more shit than the rest of us since the attacks. I had no right to frak with the one normal thing you still had going."
"Why does everyone think I want to be normal?" Kara screamed.
Racetrack looked taken aback. "Well, everything you do is pretty much unthinkable to the rest of us. I guess everyone figures it might get tiring."
The air between them felt forced to Kara, and she could see Racetrack debating whether she should stay or leave. She was probably regretting her decision to intrude upon Kara, but it was too late to take it back. Besides Kara figured this might be the only time she could set Racetrack right. "So I take it he followed my advice and came crawling back to you?" Kara asked. When Racetrack looked surprised, Kara smirked. "I didn't want you to be under the impression that he decided to ask for another chance all on his own."
Racetrack nodded. "Yeah. He told me that he wasn't sure if you were the same woman he fell in love with." Kara rolled her eyes and was surprised when Racetrack laughed. "Don't think I fell for that bullshit, either. I've seen men around you. They can't help but be captivated. I'm just going to have to live with the fact that I'm his second choice."
Racetrack's brutal honesty was almost as big of a surprise as the pangs of guilt that were starting to fester in the pit of Kara's stomach. This woman was probably just as hurt as Kara was by this whole frakked up mess. Anders could have been feeding her just as much bullshit and lies as Kara.
Kara narrowed her eyes and stared at Racetrack for a moment before speaking, "It's not a secret that you and I have never gotten along, but you were there for Helo when he got hurt a few months ago. That earned you a little bit of respect from me. No matter how big a frak-up you made, I don't want to see you get steamrolled in this whole thing. Make sure you understand what type of person Anders is."
"I don't love him," Racetrack admitted. "I don't know if I ever could, either. He's just a nice distraction from life right now. He makes me forget that I stood two feet away from Boomer when she shot the Old Man, and he keeps the guilt from killing me. For now, that's enough to keep him around."
"Just keep your wits about you," Kara reminded. "Now if you wouldn't mind finding someone for me, I think the pain meds are starting to wear off."
"Thank you for this, Kara."
Kara shrugged. "Someday remind me to tell you why I don't even care that much about losing him."
Racetrack paused to let Kara's words sink in before stepping out into the main area of sickbay.
"Just you and me now, self-pity," Kara muttered to herself. She was really starting to hate how every time she was alone her thoughts always went back to Lee. It was fraking annoying.