Chapter 15 Hand Downs
As the Centurion released her, Kara let herself drop limply to the floor, trying not to betray herself by cushioning her fall, desperate to maintain her pretense of unconsciousness despite her body's continued shivering.
In the preceding hours, Six had returned twice. Each time spraying Kara's already shaking form with more cold water, then looking pointedly at her shackled hands as she had asked if Kara was ready to be reasonable. Despite her chattering teeth, she'd done her best to return the Six's mocking taunts with ones of her own. Until this last visit when she'd decided to play possum. The vague thought drifted to Kara that she probably wouldn't have to pretend if she was left much longer. Her limbs were already numb and she'd had enough survival training to know she was starting to succumb to hypothermia.
In a distant way, she was thankful that it was getting harder to think. At least the slowing of her mind meant her imagination wasn't working overtime anymore showing her images of her hands gone dark with gangrene and being hacked off by Cottle. During the period of time after the Six had first left her to contemplate her situation, Kara had pictured all that the loss of her hands would entail; the pitying looks and helplessness—a taste of which she'd already experienced as a child after her fingers had been broken. Prior to the Six's return, Kara had nearly crumbled, the future painted in her visions so overwhelming. Then, staring up at hands she could no longer feel, Kara had blinked.
If it really came to that, who said she had to live as a cripple.
She was resourceful. Hadn't she already shown she could come up with a plan if necessary? So, Kara decided that if she survived her time in Cylon hands, but lost her own, well then, she'd find a way to cross the river Styx—and maybe Zak would be waiting for her on the other side. The thought of the youngest Adama's warm smile temporarily drove the cold from her mind as Kara pictured herself enfolded in his comforting arms. Memories of snuggling against Zak's chest as they lay together in bed, still flush from their lovemaking, raised a wave of momentary heat within her.
But her physical world's icy fingers quickly shoved the memory aside, and Kara was left feeling colder than before. The images had firmed her resolve, though. She knew that the gods were against suicide, and Kara had always viewed it as the coward's solution, yet, the way she figured it, if she made it out of this hellhole a cripple but without giving up the fleet, the gods owed her a pass. And it was a debt she planned to collect, even if she had to slit her own throat using a knife and her toes.
That settled, Kara set about the business of enduring the shudders that wracked her already cramping muscles and spasmed her aching torso. She had given her tormentor the same 'frak you' answer on the Cylon's next visit.
Now, she had to work to convince the Six that she wasn't in any shape to respond, let alone beg. It wasn't that difficult.
As she lay on the floor and heard the cell door close, her mind drifted and it would have been so easy to just let go.
Earlier, Kara had come to the conclusion that the Cylons wanted her alive and thus were avoiding some of the more aggressive forms of torture. Weren't they gonna be pissed if she shuffled off from hypothermia. The thought was enough to make her huff a weak laugh. And the laugh set off a coughing fit that lanced her side with pain, reminding her that she wasn't dead yet. Panting in the aftermath, Kara heard the taunting voice of her mom calling her weak, reminding her that the gods wouldn't give her a pass if she just lay there and didn't even try. She was going to have to try. If she failed… What was one more added to a lifetime's worth.
Levering arms she couldn't feel beneath her, Kara drew her knees up and made it onto all fours.
Right... Good... Half way there.
Leaning with her shoulder to the wall, she slid her way up until she could lock her knees to support her weight. Breathing heavily, she regarded the two lumps of meat that were attached to her shoulders. Her fingers twitched as she commanded them to open from their partially curled position.
Damn… Not good... But maybe not too late either.
Turning so her rear was braced against the wall, she leaned downward, letting her arms hang as she shook them, trying to restore as much circulation as possible. After awhile, she began pacing back and forth, bumping her arms and hands gently against her thighs, occasionally adding gentle arm circles.
The movement served to warm her, but her teeth continued to chatter and she was still shuddering uncontrollably. Shivering was good, though, meant she wasn't too far gone into hypothermia. Feeling in the form of tingling needles returned first to her toes and feet. Her hands were swelling and slightly red as they began to ache. The pins and needles sensation eventually gave way to a throbbing that pulsed with each heartbeat.
It frakkin' hurt— but was a good sign.
And the shudders that had made walking an unsteady ordeal had finally settled into random shivers. Gods, what she wouldn't trade for a warm blanket. Or just the return of her tanks and pants. Kara hadn't been surprised to see that the Six had taken them away with her, along with the two remaining pain pills, and their loss was more vexing as that of her clothes.
Kara wrapped her arms around her torso and kept up a stream of vicious curses at the absent Cylon as she continued to circle the small cell.
Exhaustion eventually forced her to sit on the floor with her arms wrapped around knees pulled in for warmth. The fabric of her grey briefs at least gave her a scrap of insulation from the concrete but she was still miserably cold as she drifted in and out of stilted sleep. Occasionally, she'd stand and stomp around until fatigue again dropped her.
Between stomping and dozing, Kara did dexterity and flexibility drills with her fingers, remembering the different ones she'd been taught as a child by a solemn nurse. It was after the first time her fingers had been broken. Once the cast had been removed, the doctor had pulled her mom off into an adjoining office, leaving the six-year-old Kara with his middle-aged assistant to be shown how to do the rehabilitation exercises. Or try to, at least. With her mom safely out of the room, Kara had cradled her throbbing hand and mutely refused to follow the woman's instructions.
Touching fingertips to thumbs, Kara grimly smiled as remembered the variety of brides the nurse had offered, hoping to get her to cooperate and do the painful exercises. The harried woman had finally agreed to let her keep the blue and gold pyramid ball she had been using for demonstration purposes. After that, the young Kara had gritted her teeth and silently completed each drill. By the time her mother had finally returned and brusquely told her that it was time to go, the inside of Kara's lip was bleeding, but she hadn't cried, not once. True to her word, the nurse, with a cryptic look at her mother, had slipped the ball into Kara's hands as they turned to leave.
That ball had become both a curse and a talisman over the following weeks as Kara had forced her painfully stiff fingers to grip and release it as shown several times each day. And then, a summer afternoon a month later, a group of neighborhood boys had seen her bouncing it against the back wall of the deserted school. They'd offered to let her play with them if they could use her ball. Over that summer she'd learned that, with her speed and reflexes, she could best most of the boys her age. And she'd also earned their grudging respect by taking anything they could dish out and returning it in kind—usually with interest and punctuated with a smirk.
Kara grimaced at the irony that yet another of the little lessons she'd learned because of her mother was proving useful. Sitting on the cold concrete, Kara added to her wish list; one pyramid ball, black and red, the Caprican Buccaneers' colors, of course.
Like Sam would forgive me if I chose any other.
Kara abruptly pushed thoughts of her husband aside, they lead to a different kind of pain she didn't have the strength to deal with right now. No. What mattered was that she still had the use of her hands. If—when—the Galactica finally returned, she was damned well gonna be ready to blow as many of the Cylon frakkers to hell that she could.
Continuing on to slow extension and fisting of her fingers, Starbuck closed her eyes and pretended she was closing her hands about her tormentors' throats, alternating between the Six and Leoben.
It was almost enough to distract her from the cold... Almost.