For notes, warnings and disclaimers see part 1
Part 2: After
Kara was curled up on her side holding the stogie the Commander had just given her like a lifeline... or at least as close to curled up as she could manage with a knee that was currently immobilized. That wasn't helping matters and neither was the fact that she couldn't stop the tears from falling. She hated that.
She was Starbuck and Starbuck wasn't weak, she didn't cry. It was as simple as that. Besides, tears were stupid anyway and they never solved anything.
The thing was that for some reason the Old Man seemed to have forgiven her and she just didn't know what to make out of any of it. She couldn't understand why or how he could possibly have done it. She had been lying there, ready to take whatever he could dish out and then he had actually told her that she had done good and somehow she didn't think it was just because she had managed to bring back a captured raider, one that was bound to provide them with their first opportunity to study what it was that they were up against.
In fact he had seemed to be almost happy to see her, relieved... and then he had kissed her. That was the last thing she had been expecting and she hadn't really known what to do, how to respond. In fact she had barely been able to keep herself from breaking down right then and there as she tried to figure out what to make out of any of it. Luckily he had left shortly after that and that meant she had a chance to try to regain her composure... maybe.
The problem was that she knew Cottle could walk in at any time and she was far from ready for that.
She didn't need anyone to see her like that and --even though she was still anxious about what the doc would tell her-- she really needed a few minutes to herself, a few minutes to at least try to make some sort of sense out of what had happened.
Unfortunately that was easier said than done because, no matter how she looked at it, it just made no sense at all. She remembered how angry the Old Man had been so, why did he seem so relieved to have her back? Sure, she was his best pilot but there were no guarantees that she would ever fly again, that she wouldnít become a dead weight for the fleet, a useless mouth to feed at a time when resources were scarce. It was true that, even if she could no longer fly, she was still the only experienced flight instructor they had left but... well, it was a fact that pretty much anyone who could fly could teach and besides, the Old Man had to know that --as far as flight instructors went-- she was a pretty crappy one. Sure, she was a good pilot --very, very good-- but her skill in the air was based on her instincts, her feel for her viper. Books had never really been her thing and --unlike Lee-- she couldn't quote a flight manual to save her life.
That brought her back to her original question: why had the Old Man seemed almost relieved to have her back? In fact, why had the fleet still been there for her to get back to in the first place? That the fleet would be gone by the time she got there was something she hadn't even paused to consider in her dogged determination to make it out of that damned moon in something remotely resembling one piece but the bottom line was that that was exactly what should have happened.
They had fought the cylons around that moon and the Commander must have known that that meant that staying in the area was a pretty dumb risk to take. That was only common sense. After all, even if the cylons hadn't had time to report their position back to their basestar --and even if they hadn't somehow been linked to some sort of 'central network' that could have picked up the fact that they had been destroyed-- their absence was still bound to be noticed sooner or later. It was true that for the military the idea of not leaving anyone behind was a matter of principle, but to risk all that remained of mankind in an attempt to rescue a single pilot and a screw up at that? That made no sense... especially because the Commander must have known how long her oxygen supply was supposed to last, so what had the fleet still been doing there long after that oxygen had run out?
Maybe there was a reason she couldn't see because of all the drugs Cottle was pumping into her, something that would make sense once her head had had a chance to clear. That was the closest thing to a logical explanation she could come up with for the time being. The truth was that Kara hated being so doped she couldn't even think. She felt like her brain was stuffed with cotton... though at the same time she knew that that cotton was the only thing that was keeping the pain down to a manageable level now that the adrenaline had worn off so it was definitely the lesser evil.
Well, at least the good news was that she was finally clean, she was safe --or at least as close to safe as she could be under the circumstances-- and she was home... even if the why and how of that last part refused to make any sense at all.
Author's notes: Hi guys, okay, as you can see I decided to add a little to this story. 'To Walk Away' is now complete though I will probably turn it eventually into a series of ficlets that are loosely connected. Anyway, I hope you've liked this (maybe even enough to review? In fact you can even review to tell me why you didn't like it).
Thanks for reading,
Alec