He bolted upright, pushing away the weight that was holding him down as the screams filled his ears, his name echoing down the corridor as he choked on his own shouts for Apollo. Why had he taken so damn long to get there?
It was the surprise of finding that his limbs were light and he wasn't tied down that brought him to full consciousness. The weight he was pushing away was soft and pliable, not steel bonds. It was his own wife in his arms and her soft groan at his movements which made him grateful that he'd been able to keep his shout contained. But the effort of holding it in had him gasping for air as he oriented himself to the abrupt change in his surroundings.
The sound of the guitar strumming softly helped him to slow his pounding pulse. He tried to close his eyes, but the visions inside his own head were frightening. He looked towards Rene's friend, finding the young man watching him, but he didn't move from his chair nor pause in his playing. When their eyes met, Jake said softly, "You're okay."
It wasn't a question, but Starbuck answered it anyway with a soft, "Yeah, I am." He brought up his wrist to check the time, forgetting that somewhere on Caprica he had lost his chrono. He didn't think he had slept long, but it seemed a yahren since he'd been in this bed. Rene was right, it was hard to judge time on the Battlestar when you were used to being planetside. He wanted to ask Jake the time but figured it didn't matter. If they had to be somewhere, he would have awakened them. Rene was still sleeping and he tried to rejoin her, but when he closed his eyes, all he could see was the gleam of medical instruments and his eyes flew open. The soft gray of the ceiling was little comfort, looking far too clean, wide and somehow sterile. He missed seeing the bottom of a bunk and hearing the sounds of his buddies snoring away.
He thought he understood now why the Rats often slept with music pods in their ears. The guitar helped as Jake kept strumming, only pausing briefly to tap something into his data pad. Starbuck wondered what he was doing, but he didn't recognize the song Jake was playing and it occurred to him that Jake wrote his own songs and wondered what this one would be about. Not a love song, that much he knew. He closed his eyes again, trying to lose himself in the music, but it wasn't working. He was just too conscious of everything and wasn't really tired, besides he had things he should be doing, didn't he? He always did.
He eased his way out of the bed hoping to not wake Rene, who mumbled something in protest, but she rolled away towards the wall and remained asleep. He headed for the kitchen, getting himself and Jake an ale from the chiller, enjoying the taste of something other than water. As he handed Jake his, the young man quirked an eyebrow.
"Salik was pretty clear he wanted to find nothing on my tox screen. I'm assuming that means nothing."
Starbuck tried not to chuckle, "Yeah well, that's in a secton and ale is allowed, and if not, you can just do what you guys do best and claim someone else made you do it."
Jake flipped him a very rude hand gesture as he downed half the ale in a long pull as if worried it might be taken from him. Starbuck tried not to laugh, instead asking, "So where did you hide it all? Our quarters aren't that big." He knew from the long pause from Jake as he set down the drink and resumed strumming the guitar that any answer he gave would be a lie.
"Not here."
"Oh wow, that was different. The truth, how refreshing," he smiled at Jake to try to let him know he was just teasing, but the young man glared back. "It was a joke. I'm on your side, remember?"
"Yeah, well for the last secton I've been chewed out so much I am honestly searching for teeth marks on my astrum, so you can stow it."
Jake had a point, and Starbuck tried to remember the kid was just as tired as the rest of them. "Okay, sorry, but it is a real question. We are going to have all our quarters searched, so what will they find?"
"Depends on what you have stashed. As for the Rats? We survived Dante, remember? You think we owned our quarters? No, we made them out of the supplies others didn't want, and when they looked good, they were taken from us and we had to start again from scratch. We know how to hide anything that's important. It's in the last place you would think to look."
Starbuck contemplated Jake's words as he sipped at the ale, thinking back on the Rat's past. They hadn't had anything resembling a private living space for a long while. They'd been on the streets before the destruction and the Caprican refugees hadn't been given quarters on the Zakar. The ship had been overloaded and he'd seen first-hand the makeshift bunks and living spaces they had carved out of corridors. They had been given quarters here on the Galactica, but with the rescue of Avery's people, Starbuck could see how Jake might anticipate a repeating pattern. The rats were being asked to share their living spaces once again. Knowing how pushy the survivalist from Caprica could be, the Copper Squadron might lose some of what they had gained. Starbuck would be making a point of sitting beside Adama tonight at dinner; he had more than a few things to discuss with the Commander.
Then it hit him like a pulsar bolt between the eyes. The last place he'd think to look for any contraband. "You hid it in the Commander's quarters?"
Jake's fingers slipped on the guitar strings sounding a sour note.
"Holy frak, I'm right!" Starbuck congratulated himself for finally figuring it out, amazed at the sense that it made. It was just down the corridor, and probably had the room with supplies running low. The contraband would be secure from others stumbling across it who might not have a stake in the profits, and if it was found, the rats would be the first to know. They'd be in a mong heap of trouble of course, but they would know. Besides, how often did a Commander go through his own quarters? Plenty of storage in the Commander's larder, but not enough for the amounts he was sure these two had plundered. "Well, I'm right for some of it anyway, so where's the rest?" he voiced his thoughts, still a little in awe that he hadn't thought of it sooner.
"If you are on our side, you won't keep asking. Besides, who says it's on the Galactica? She can go anywhere she wants."
He considered the words as he looked to Rene. He wished he could say she was sleeping peacefully, but she'd put her back against the wall and her features looked troubled, a frown creasing her brow as she dreamed. He heaved a heavy sigh instead of lecturing Jake about the risks they had put themselves into if his words were truth. If they had been doing a lot of jumping across their known universe, they had put more than themselves and the health of his unborn child at risk. There were more than the Cylons to fear in the great unknown. Who knew if Iblis was still out there waiting on them? What would he do? What could he do?
"Do you think the people of light meant for her to have this ability so she could obtain and hide black market goods? They didn't strike me as smugglers." He left it unspoken that Iblis did have all the qualities of the pirates from their past.
Jake stopped strumming and the silence of the quarters suddenly felt oppressive, maybe due to the fact that it wasn't silent, just absent of human voices. Starbuck could hear the hiss of the air circulating from the refresher, the hum of the chiller in the other room, and underlying all of that the throb of the Galactica's engines. After the quiet of Caprica, it was almost overwhelming the cacophony of mechanical sounds when all he wanted to hear was the breaths of those he cared about. He looked away from his wife back to the young man shocked at how old the kid looked at that moment, the artificial lights bringing out the lines of worry on his face.
"I don't know why they gave it to her. I used to think it was just to torture us more, to have the ability to go anywhere but," he shook his head, reaching out to down the rest of the ale before speaking again, "There was nowhere to go, nowhere we could get away from them. There are some planets she found later she doesn't think that the Cylons have been to, but they are primitive, and the environments harsh. It is a gamble to go there with the kids. Don't think it wasn't tempting, especially when Dante got in a mood. Maybe if it was just…us…but there's always been some kids to worry about."
"Yeah, but you would have been away from Dante and the kids might have been safer," Starbuck reasoned, then remembered the night he spent in a landram on Arcta and shivered. "But yeah, I see what you are saying."
Jake nodded. "Too many unknowns I guess, and she always said that Dante was at least the demon we knew. Plus, there's a difference between solitude and being utterly alone."
The words echoed like their voices in the dark sewers of Caprica and he thought he understood what Jake was talking about. Starbuck knew he could be kind of a solitary person, maybe due to his upbringing and how he tried to keep everyone out, but the real truth he realized now was the complete opposite. When Starbuck had gone on long recon patrols, even the one where he wound up on Proteus in their prison, he'd not felt alone. He had the Galactica to come home to, Apollo and Boomer looking for him, and Blue and Red squadron to call on. When he crash landed on Attila, he knew Boomer was going to come back and help. Apollo was with him most of the time, and when he wasn't, he knew his friend would come find him. But falling through Rene's rift to Caprica that first time and climbing out of the cockpit onto the empty streets of his ruined home world had redefined the word 'alone'.
"How about we stop playing around with it then, at least until we know more about it. I mean, is it that bad here that you were willing to take the risk?"
Jake just gave him a shrug. The gesture said far too much and Starbuck wondered if the Rats would ever be happy in the fleet.
"Starbuck, it wasn't my idea. It was hers."
The words stung and his chest burned almost as if he'd been shot. Jake read his reaction, offering up an explanation to soften the blow.
"She thinks she's doing the right thing. She went back for a dress to wear to your sealing. She went back for you, to make you happy."
"I was already happy," he reasoned with Jake, as if somehow it could change what had happened and turn back time. "I'm a guy. Dresses don't tend to fulfil me. Now the lack of a dress . . ."
Jake didn't say anything for a few centons, going back to strumming before he softly said, "If you could do what she does, would you just stop if she asked you to?"
He thought about it realizing the kid had a point. If he could jump around the universe on a whim, he was pretty sure he would any chance he got. Jake didn't give him the opportunity to admit the point as he continued, "It wasn't about being unhappy or wanting to get away from you or even the Galactica. Once Gage opened up that possibility, she took it. You should know her well enough by now; she's in for the whole game even if she has to lose all her cubits. The dress was just an excuse. I think even the dreams were just the spin of the wheel to point the direction to go. Look, I don't know why they gave her this gift, but they did. Maybe it's a curse, maybe we'll both lose her to it someday, but until then, I'm going to follow her even if it all goes to hades every time I do."
Starbuck nodded, knowing he would probably do the same despite how stupid it would be. He turned away from the young man before the kid could guess his thoughts. He looked to Rene, finding that she was awake and regarding the two of them. He didn't know what to say, unsure what she had heard. The topic was too much to deal with today. They'd already had a full day and a busy night lay ahead of them.
He was about to ask Jake to leave them alone again, but the door chimed and Jake got up to admit Apollo, Boomer and Sheba. Rene sat up in bed….
To my adoring fans,
I am far from finished, but my job and personal life require that I take a bit of a hiatus for a month or so. I don't like it any more than you do, but hopefully I will come back with more stories and more chapters to this ever expanding epic. There are more twists and turns to come. I want to keep putting out a quality product in all areas of my life, and I want to do this story the justice it deserves. That means waiting for when I have enough time to really write. Thanks for your support and understanding.