Gone
Tag for "Maelstrom"
"She's gone."
He could hear himself choking out the words, but it didn't feel like him saying them. There was no way it was possible, and yet he had seen it with his own eyes. Starbuck's viper was gone. Kara was gone. He couldn't believe it, and yet it was the only thing that could explain the encompassing pain he felt radiating through his limbs.
Somehow, he wasn't sure how, he landed his viper. He pulled off his helmet as the canopy was retracted, and slowly stood from the cockpit. He stepped onto the ladder, getting almost to the bottom before losing his footing and falling the rest of the way onto the hangar deck.
He laid there for several moments before attempting to pick himself up. When he did, he felt a pair of hands reach for him and help him to his feet. He looked up, and he saw Helo, tears welling in the other man's eyes. Of course, Helo had been on maintenance duty when they had launched the CAP. The deck crew would have been alerted and tuned in to the pilots' wireless as soon as Kara had spotted the heavy raider. They all knew what had happened.
"Lee," Agathon softly spoke, one of the few times he had called Lee by his given name, and not his last name or call sign.
That one syllable was more than Lee could handle, and he broke down. He found himself enveloped in the taller man's arms, both grieving for the woman they had loved, though differently.
Kara was gone. For good, this time. There could be no coming back, the way her viper had exploded.
This time he had indeed lost her forever.