FIC TITLE: Maelstorm Fill-Ins

Complete

Author- PTBvisiongrrl

Part- 5/5

Date- 3-12-07

Rating – R (MOSTLY FOR LANGUAGE AND TOPICAL ISSUES)

Pairings/Characters- Lee/Kara

Word Count- 1504

Category- Short Story

Genre- Angst

Archiving- The Fallout Shelter, Apollo/Starbuck Fan Fic, All others please ask!

Warnings- Not really- just language…

Spoilers- THROUGH SEASON THREE

Disclaimers- Unfortunately, I don’t own any of these characters, and make absolutely no profit from taking them out to play…

Summary- Why does Kara give up so easily?

Chapter Five:

Mourning Kara

Lee landed his bird mechanically, not really thinking about what he was doing. Thank the gods it was ingrained instinct for him now, because his mind had shut down except for a mental chant. "It’s no use. Her ship’s in pieces. We lost her. We lost her. We lost her." He didn’t think he’d be able to climb out of his viper and stay upright. He barely looked at the end-flight checklist, simply handing it back to Tyrol.

"I’m sorry, sir." Tyrol’s eyes glittered with unshed tears. "She was the best there was."

Lee could only nod and drag his body out of the cockpit, heavily stumbling down the steel ladder to the flight deck. It was oddly silent and still, the usual noises of clanking metal, yelled jokes, and the rumble of idling engines missing. The shock of loosing Starbuck had enveloped everyone. Pulling down his flight suit to tie off at the waist, he made his way slowly to CIC. All along the way, he got long hushed glances out the corner of people’s eyes and some braver souls gave him openly pitying looks.

He held on to his shock, ignoring the rage building in him with every step. He didn’t want to lose it in the hallway. He needed to make his report to his father, get a shower, and hide somewhere away from Dee with a jar or two of the chief’s special brew. Lee didn’t think he could take a single statement of condolence from anyone.

Arriving in CIC, he steeled himself to look as impassive as possible. A quick glance told him his father was not here; Tigh grunted that the Admiral had retired to quarters. Lee avoided Ana’s eyes, and headed there. The noise of smashing wood and shattering glass reverberated through the hatch. Lee hesitated for a moment before knocking on the hatch. "Dad?" he called out once, then a second time louder. In the resulting pause, he called a third time, his voice wavering with suppressed emotion.

He heard his father’s heavy footsteps cross the metal decking and the hatch squealed with the force the Admiral used to open it. "Lee-" was all he could say, before Lee stepped through the door and wrapped his arms around him. The Old Man let loose with shuddering sobs that frightened Lee with their intensity, but he answered with tears of his own and a child-like repetitive babble of "We lost her, Dad, we lost her." Lee had lost his best friend and sometime lover; Adama had lost another child.

The two men stayed that way for some time, before Bill heaved a heavy sigh and with a last squeeze drew back to look at Lee. "She’s gone, son. She’s really gone this time. I can’t believe it."

Lee gasped to regain control. "There’s no stolen raider bringing her home this time. There is no way she survived that explosion." He sniffled, almost loosing it. "It wasn’t supposed to end this way."

Bill suddenly looked much older than his sixty-some years. "There’s no other way for a pilot to go, son. If you keep flying long enough, fast enough, its what happens." He lay a hand on Lee’s shoulder and squeezed. "I just never thought it would happen to her." He turned and picked his way silently through a mess of broken pieces on the floor to sit on his couch, a bottle of expensive ambrosia sitting next to three glasses. Bill motioned Lee to follow him as he poured out the liquor.

Lee, still gulping for control, made his own way through the shards of destruction across the decking. He sat down across from his father, took a glass, and held it up. "To Starbuck- the best Viper jock I’ve ever seen, the best friend I’ve ever had-"

Bill held Lee’s eyes. "The woman you loved," he finished for Lee.

Lee wasn’t surprised that his father had figured it out. He was surprised that Bill had chosen to say anything about it. Many a time as a teenager Lee had thought that he’d gotten away with something, only to have his father bring it up at a much later and less convenient time. Lee agreed. "To the woman I loved," he repeated, then drank deeply. This was good ambrosia, smooth going down and nicely aged. Placing his glass down and sliding it toward the bottle, he noted, "That’s the good stuff. Where have you been hiding that?"

Bill drank his own, then poured another for them both. "This is a bottle I had bought on the last vacation your mother and I took alone together, when you and Zak were little. Your mother and I bought one for each of you, and another for the little girl we hoped to have someday. I was saving it for your wedding days."

"You didn’t bring this out at mine and Dee’s wedding-" Lee started, the liquor and emotions making his mind slow.

"No, I didn’t," was Bill’s only answer. "I drank Zak’s bottle the night of his funeral, with Kara."

Lee nodded. "This is the little girl you hoped for’s bottle."

"No, Tigh and I got piss-drunk on that the day my divorce was finalized." Adama shook his head. "This one was yours."

The thoughts in Lee’s brain almost froze. This was too much at once- the loss of Kara, his father’s reaction, his own reaction, and now the fact that his father obviously had thought that he should have married Kara, not Dee. He stared at his father, questioning.

Bill rose and straightened his uniform. "I need to go back to CIC. There’s a letter Starbuck left with me, to give to you in case anything happened to her. It’s in the top right desk drawer. I’ll give you some privacy to read it. Then I would like for you to stay and drink the rest of that bottle with me tonight, in Starbuck’s honor."

Lee numbly nodded. How could his father be going back to work already? It had barely been a couple of hours. Watching his father’s broad shoulders stride out of the cabin, he had to admire the steel will, even if he hadn’t always been caught on the right side of it. He sat and sipped at his drink, looking at the desk as if it were a live animal waiting to rip out his heart.

In a way, it wasn’t that far off the mark. Gods only knew what Kara had to say to him, and as he stood now, her loss so fresh, he wasn’t sure that he wanted to hear it. It took another drink and almost thirty minutes before he felt brave enough to open the drawer; another ten minutes of staring at it before he could touch the envelope; and fifteen holding the thick paper and staring at her easy script across it before he could break the seal.

Taking a deep breath and closing his eyes for a moment, he opened the letter and unfolded the pages. He began to read:

Dear Lee:

Kara Thrace loves Lee Adama, and always will. You may not believe that any more, but its true. I also know that I can never have you. I’m bad luck, cursed; I can’t be happy, because if I am, something bad happens to the person who makes me happy. That’s why I married Sam. He doesn’t make me happy, quite, but content. He’s safe from the Thrace curse. You aren’t.

But I do want you to be happy. I want you to have the bright shiny future that I am not going to get to have. Find Earth. Build a new home. Have plenty of children to run and play in a big yard. If you happen to have one, name the blond-haired girl after me. I loved you enough that I gave you up.

I’m sorry that it hurt you, that I ran away from what we had. But it had to be done, to save you. Don’t mourn me too long or too loudly. Dee will get mad, and I don’t want to cause anymore difficulty there. Just think of me on occasion, and watch out for the Old Man.

Starbuck

Lee re-read the first line over and over again. She had loved him, she had. And all the games and bad choices were the result of her deeply held belief that she was and always would be a screw-up. Guiltily, he realized that, as much as he had loved her, he himself had done blessed little to break that belief. If only he had, if he’d been braver, if he’d acted sooner, maybe they wouldn’t have lost so much time together. In truth, they had had one night, a massive fight, and a few stolen moments. It was all that he would ever have of her, now.

That lonely thought echoed in his still mind, until his father returned hours later and they drank late into the night toasting Kara "Starbuck" Thrace.