Chapter Ten
Lee made his way back through the camp to his tent, dodging children and circling campfires. He glanced up at the stormy sky. Those fires would be banked soon, it looked like rain.
He'd have to put out the buckets when he got back. Collecting rainwater was probably the only chore for the survivors that didn't require any work, and very little preparation. Lee had come to like the rain.
Sometimes he would lie in his tent and stare up at nothing, listening to its steady patter. Sometimes he thought of her.
What do you hear, Starbuck?
Nothing but the rain.
He hoped she was happy, wherever she was. And she was somewhere. He flatly refused to believe she was just gone. On some distant plain perhaps, the afterlife, somewhere beyond mortal beings. But she was there. He simply couldn't wrap his mind around the possibility that Kara Thrace, a force of nature since the day he met her, had somehow just disappeared into the ether, never to be seen or heard from again.
There were nights when the thought comforted him. There were nights when nothing could. When the only thing he could do was lie awake and think of all the missed opportunities, and all the wasted time. Of how there could never be another Kara Thrace for him. She was that indefinable something he'd been searching for until the day he met her. After, she was the one thing he'd always wanted but could never have. Always just out of reach. Elusive, maddening, captivating. She'd made it impossible for him to ever let go because she'd spent their entire relationship forcing him to hold on. She'd always been the unattainable. So now that she was truly gone it felt as if he had simply fallen into all the old patterns. Mourning, hating, loving, aching for, and missing her by turns.
Lee felt a drop of moisture hit the bridge of his nose, then another. He should pick up the pace. Trouble was, even after two months, his leg still gave a twinge whenever he asked too much of it. The gash itself had healed nicely, though the skin still felt stretched a little too tight. It was the bone underneath, where you couldn't see, that had suffered the deep bruising. That was the source of his pain.
He slipped his hand into his side pocket and absently fingered the tiny golden statue he kept hidden there.
He could see his tent up ahead now. Romo would be waiting for him, he'd become a sounding board of sorts for the new president. They'd agreed to go over some policies together today. Lampkin was fond of saying that while the paperwork of building a societal government was in endless supply, the same could not be said of the paper itself.
Lee began a mental rundown of all the things he'd meant to propose today. A renegade thought slipped in of how much his dad would hate to be present at what had become his and Romo's regular informal meetings. The thought of his father's absolute distaste for the whole ordeal brought a small smile to Lee's lips. It was nice to smile, even if it was only in a cynical way. Lee really didn't have too much to smile about these days.
Lampkin was waiting for him at the tent's entrance. He greeted the bespectacled man with a nod and gestured for him to proceed him into the tent.
He followed behind, shoving all thoughts of the loved ones he'd lost aside. There would be time enough to mourn for them when evening fell.
Kara walked away from the shadow of Galactica, the wet grass slick beneath her boots. The rain slid over her face and arms, washing away the blood and sweat, plastering her tanks and fatigues to her skin.
The others followed close behind, then slowly began to close in on her sides and spread out until she was lost in the masses. Hundreds of them. Some she'd never met. Some she'd never heard of. Some she loved. All the people who had never stepped foot on this planet.
Their two remaining raptors had spotted life on the planet as the ships drew closer. Small pockets of civilization. One rather large one. After the news of that had spread, the general spirit of the survivors had grown a little lighter.
Now as they saw the proof if it with their own eyes, excitement was replacing confusion and fear.
They'd laid all ships down a little less than a mile outside of the sprawling camp. Kara looked out into the distance at the people departing the other ships. Several small queues slowly merging into one mass caravan.
Kara couldn't stop herself from turning about; lost in a sea of faces. Some faces belonged to those who'd died at the first Battle of the Nebula. Some belonged to those who'd died in the Mutiny. All belonged to those throughout the Fleet who'd died for no reason at all.
She turned to look back at where she'd last seen Sam, several yards behind. He'd been waiting for that. He smiled a ready smile at her over the swarm of heads.
She caught sight of Dee out of the corner of her eye, turning in circles hands open to the watery sky. Boomer walked past purposefully, left alone. The crowd was making a small berth around her but she didn't look as if she cared. She was looking around as if things were completely frakked up in the best possible way. She might even have been crying a little. The rain made it hard to tell.
Racetrack let out a whoop, already some yards ahead in the crowd. Cally was walking along nearby her, empty arms wrapped around herself, staring ahead at the camp and looking torn between distress and hope.
Kara blinked the moisture from her eyes and dragged in a lungful of sweet oxygen through her mouth. The familiar smell of Galactica was gone, replaced with the scents of sweet grass and nitrogen in the air. She knew this place.
The shape of it, the smell of it, the feel of it on her skin; in her pores.
Kara stopped walking when she reached the crest of the hillside; people continued to flow around her. She stood very still, soaking it all in. The rain washed over her, whispering promises she was afraid to believe in.
She dropped her head and looked at the ground, crossing her arms. The rain made ropes out of the strands of her hair, they fell over her face obstructing her view. She took several deep breaths, allowed herself time to process, to think. At length she crouched down, arms draping over her knees. She mentally braced herself then slowly raised her eyes to look in the direction where the camp should be. People walked by, blocking her view from time to time but she didn't care.
It was there. Spreading from about a mile away from where she was, all the way to the horizon. Green hills and lush trees, rivers and rocks, mountains off in the distance. And in the midst of it all, familiar metal shapes in the form of grounded ships. Hundreds of small canvas tents. And-gods willing-thousands of people, people she'd never met, people she'd die for.
Someone laid a gentle hand on her shoulder for a moment as they walked by. Sam.
Kara buried her face in her hands for a moment, then abruptly scrubbed her face and stood.
The sudden motion caused the chains around her neck to swing back thumping against her collarbone. She glanced down. Two sets of dog tags.
With trembling hands, she reached up to grasp them. The first set lay in her hand untarnished. They had never been incinerated in a fiery crash. Never been torn from her charred corpse. They had always hung around her neck. Kara Thrace.
Her eyes slid shut. There was gratitude amidst the pain.
Slowly, she opened her eyes and examined the second pair of tags. She fingered them carefully. There were still flecks of blood. The name on them was not her own.
She carefully tucked them between her tanks and began to walk towards the horizon like the others. Towards the man whose name she wore?
Please gods.
Kara skidded on the grass a little, caught her balance. The uneven terrain and terrible weather were working against her. She wasn't alone.
She recognized a member of the Quorum, Jacob Cantrell, dropping down on the wet grass to her far left to take off his shoes altogether as the sloshing of the leather dragged him down.
Most of the crowd was ahead of her at this point, though she could hear the distant sounds of the people bringing up the rear behind her. Kara estimated them to be about a thousand strong.
Kara sidestepped down a particularly steep downward slope; it afforded her a better view of the settlement. She could see people beginning to leave the camp to investigate. Only a few stragglers at first braved the weather, then slowly more until the number of people coming to greet them rivaled their own.
The heavy thunder might have masked the sound of their ships entering the atmosphere, but they had been spotted now.
She rubbed her hands together, breathed on them, folded her arms and tucked them in. Her right bicep ached where her wound stretched tight. The air was already cool, but combined with the constant rain, she was beginning to shiver. Bruises she hadn't felt before made their presence known. Everything hurt.
She knew she was either getting close to the camp or the people from the camp were getting close to her as the faint sounds began to drift by of people shouting, laughing, talking. Recognizing, reuniting. Living.
Kara didn't know if she should feel joy or heartache so she tried to feel neither. She was grateful to be here, but what felt like only moments ago she had seen the people she loved and cared about slip away from her one by one. A sense of loss persistently clung to any contentment.
Nearby, a man cried out and rushed forward to embrace a middle-aged woman in a rust colored coat who had been walking beside her for the last few minutes. The couple began to sob.
Kara looked away, feeling as if she were intruding on a private moment. More and more settlers began walking towards Kara and the others, until finally, the amount of people moving out of the camp and into it found a stalemate and forward motion stopped altogether.
Men and women and children began hugging and shouting, calling out names, searching for loved ones. Questions were asked, concerns raised. One couldn't hear themselves think amidst the turmoil. Tears of joy fell to rival the rain. Beautiful chaos.
Kara had yet to see any of the people important to her, though she recognized some shipmates in passing. Most of them did a double take. One called out her call sign. She wasn't sure if she managed a smile in return or not. All she could think was that if they were here, than he must be, too. She started pushing back, scanning the crowd, hopping up from time to time to see then falling back into the swarm; lost.
Her body was losing heat fast and fear and uncertainty were moving in to take its place. She walked a little faster, turned to the side, wove through the crowd. She remembered where the tent had stood. She'd left…a lot of things there.
A young blonde man jostled her shoulder as he shoved past, spinning her around.
It was then that she saw him.
Average height, brown hair, lean. He still wore those ridiculous spectacles, she saw. She looked down, a white and black dog stood at his feet. She must look like a drowned latrine rat, from the look on his face. She frowned and swiped the damp strands of hair clinging to her face out of her eyes with an impatient, unsteady hand.
She had just taken a step forward when she saw him turn to someone behind him, speaking over his shoulder.
What felt like a very long moment passed. She stopped in her tracks and waited though she wasn't sure what for. Water sloshed under the heels of her boots as she shifted. She took a shaky breath. Someone else behind her called her name. Kara barely heard. People crossed past her line of vision, oblivious.
It seemed a lifetime had passed before another man came from behind Romo to stand at his side. Average height, brown hair, lean. He still wore the weight of the world on his shoulders, she saw.
She took in the sight of him, alive and whole. So damn perfect. There was a sudden hitch in her breathing, a hot ache in the center of her chest spreading outwards. A curious mixture of regret and gratitude cramped her stomach and crowded the air from her lungs.
He froze at the sight of her, their eyes connecting. Disbelief and shock played across his clear features, followed swiftly by a broken expression as if she'd wounded him somehow.
Kara clenched her fists at her side; cold.
Sheets of rain fell between them, swarms of people shifted past; and still she stared at his face. It was hard to just accept it. For him. For her. His chest rose and fell sharply, he finally looked away, releasing her, breathing raggedly.
She wanted to touch him, feel that he was warm, that his heart still beat. A part of her felt guilty for it, as if she betrayed his memory with himself. She had left his mangled, bloodied corpse on the hangar deck floor. She had drawn from his strength to complete this journey not once, but twice now. The second time had killed him.
She shivered violently now.
And yet, this man, standing alive before her…it was still him.
And she suddenly found that she didn't much care if he hadn't been a part of this final journey. Just as she had not cared that the Lee she had lost hadn't been a part of her first. All that seemed to matter was that he was here, and so was she. He still needed to be with her, she still needed to be with him. That was all.
His gaze finally slid back to her, but his head was turned slightly away, as if he were afraid to look directly at her.
"Kara?"
She couldn't even hear him, only saw his mouth form the word. It was all she needed. She put one foot in front of the other, filtered through the masses. She could see Romo Lampkin drifting away into the crowd. Simply accepting the unexpected and leaving them to it.
Lee began weaving his way towards her too, slowly, carefully. Eyes finding hers again and again each time someone walked between them.
They met and stopped inches away from each other. She could feel his body's heat. See the blue of his eyes. The clamor of the surrounding horde seemed to fade to a steady murmur, as if the world had tunneled to just where they stood. To just the patter of the rain on the ground and their unsteady breathing.
She couldn't speak, couldn't look away.
"I can't…You're not-" Lee forced the words from an aching throat. They came through rough with pain.
Kara stopped him with a sharp little shake of her head. Her hands fell on his shoulders, the sides of his throat. She bit down on her lip and reigned it all in.
Warmth, life. Lee. Somehow both familiar and exciting in that way only he ever was to her.
His expression tightened a little at her touch but he didn't pull away. She reached up and slid the back of her fingers over his cheekbone, across his jaw. His pulse beat fast beneath her other hand. She pressed into it, felt it thrum against her palm.
She shifted, daring to move even closer to him, like a dance. She tried to grin but smiled a heartbroken smile instead. He exhaled sharply, she felt it against her cold skin. In his eyes, the desperate need to believe. Tears and rain slid down her face.
She gave in first, wrapping her arms around his shoulders; pressing against him and drinking him in. The groove in her arm, washed clean by the rain, throbbed and she didn't feel it. Her face crumbled and she closed her eyes.
He leaned in heavily for a moment, almost forcing her to hold him up. She did. Then with a noiseless sob she could feel in her own chest, he let go and wrapped her in his arms; like steel bands around her. Her shirts bunched up past her waist as his warm hands splayed across the cold skin of her back. Another quiet sob wracked his chest as he pulled her even closer. Her ribs ached.
She thought vaguely of the soothing words she'd spoken to him on the hangar deck so long ago. The first time she'd returned from the dead. "I know. I know. Me too."
She didn't even have to speak them aloud this time. It was in the air all around them. She held the back of his damp head with her hand, laid her face in the curve of his shoulder.
It would never be enough.
They stood that way for the longest time, people and rain and minutes rushing past.
"Starbuck?"
Kara stiffened, feeling exposed. There was an intimacy in the way Lee held her, in the way she held him back, that inspired vulnerability. But only between the two of them. The outside interruption too easily turned the vulnerability to embarrassment.
Their arms slid away from each other, Kara turned to see Saul Tigh standing beside them. Ellen was clasping his arm to her side with one hand, and holding an umbrella in the other.
"I don't believe it," Tigh reached out a hand and clasped her shoulder, shaking her a little. She clenched her jaw, her teeth beginning to chatter. Tigh's glance slid to Lee and they exchanged a look she didn't understand.
She looked at the former XO and his wife and mustered a smile, "Believe it."
"You realize there are several of us whom we thought to be deceased walking about all of a sudden, Captain?" Rather than disbelief, Ellen's voice held a great deal of delighted amusement.
"Surprise," Kara returned in a flat tone. She was fresh out of smart remarks and sarcasm. She was cold and exhausted and confused as hell. All she wanted was to grab Lee's hand, go back to that tent and sleep for the next three days with her hand over his heart. After that she would worry about facing down the next frakking thing life threw at her.
The Tighs' attention was already diverted, however. Kara threw a questioning glance over her shoulder. Sam had spotted them and was jogging in their direction.
"Sam, you worthless bastard. I don't believe it," Tigh chuckled and embraced his fellow cylon while Ellen stood by and awaited her turn. "I thought we'd heard the last of you when flew yourself into the frakking sun."
Sam looked at the older man like he was the one who had gone brain dead, "Into the sun? What the frak are you talking about?"
Kara didn't hear the explanation because Lee stepped away suddenly to allow her to be engulfed in a bear hug by Karl Agathon.
"Kara, this is…" he pulled away and held her head in his hands, "…this is amazing. What happened? We all thought you were gone for good. And what's with all the folks back from the dead?" He laughed incredulously, infectiously.
The side of Kara's mouth pulled up, she rolled her eyes and shrugged. Did that count as an answer? Because that was all she was up to right now.
Helo just smiled and shook his head ignoring her non-response, "Hey, I'm not complaining."
Athena came around his side, smirking. She good-naturedly repeated her words from so long ago, "Starbuck. Late to the party as usual."
Kara felt the beginnings of a hysterical laugh bubbling up. She was surprised when the other woman stepped forward and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
It felt good.
She could see where Lee stood over Athena's shoulder. He was staring down at the wet earth. Feeling her eyes on him, he raised his head, his solemn gaze returning to her face. He smiled just the tiniest bit. Rueful and disbelieving and a frakked up kind of wonderful. Kara returned it.
It felt better.
She closed her eyes.
Athena's hug wouldn't be the last to surprise Kara in the coming hours. She lost count of how many well-wishes, long hugs, salutes, and "What the frak's?" she received.
She lost track of Lee after turning away at the sight of him and Dee embracing. She wasn't jealous per se, it just wasn't something she wanted or needed to see. After everything they… she had been through with… him… it just seemed wrong. Out of place.
The crowd closed in on her, carrying her along with it. It flowed back in the direction of the sprawling camp. Kara eventually found herself in a large tent with Romo Lampkin and several others who were asking questions and demanding answers. Somehow she had become the person to demand them of, which made sense, really, but she was in no mood for any of it.
Where the frak had they come from-weren't they all supposed to be dead? Were there any enemy cylons who had followed them here? Where were they going to put up all these new people on such short notice? Could they make use of the extra ships?
She stood before them all and gave answers that were as short and clipped as possible. Telling the truth when she could and avoiding it with blunt misdirection when she couldn't. Exhausted; alternating between the desire to roll her eyes at some of their nit-picking concerns and telling a few of them to frak off at their continued skepticism.
Hours passed and Kara folded her arms and looked behind her to the tent opening. It sounded rather like a celebration out there. And though she would certainly rather be a part of it than this forum's excruciating inquiry, she found what she really wanted was a shower, some food, and some sleep.
She looked down at the ground for a moment, stretched her jaw. When she looked up again she spoke up right in the middle of another question a woman on some new council was posing.
"Sorry, ladies and gentlemen," she put both hands up, palms outward and walked back indolently towards the tent's opening. She smiled insincerely and nodded, "That's about all I can take of this for now."
She turned around abruptly, threw back the tent flap and walked out into the darkening sky and continual rain; left them all to stare after her.