We used to wait. (Chapter 32/32 -- COMPLETED!)
title: We used to wait. (Chapter 32/32)
author:
apodixis
spoilers: Through all seasons, though this takes place in an AU starting at the very end of season 2.
pairings: kara/lee, kara/sam
overall fic rating: R/NC-17
word count: 8,957
notes: See http://apodixis.livejournal.com/685.html for more information.
summary: If God isn't leading the fleet to Earth, can they ever find it?
The final two chapters have been posted simultaneously, make sure you read them both. Enjoy!
Galactica, with a crew of just under a hundred plus sixty four Twos, Sixes, and Eights, sat one jump away from the location indicated by the hybrid on the demolished basestar. Faced down by the final death, those that remained living on the cylon ship had chosen to side with Kara and the humans. It hadn’t been just that, though, the fact that Kara also had the Final Five-or at least a few of them on the battlestar-had done the necessary persuading. They were their makers, and in some ways, held a lot of answers for them. The Five, along with the boxing of the Three line, had been why they’d gone to war with Cavil and his followers to begin with. There was no question of it once Kara had made the threat to leave them behind, they would abandon the basestar and the hybrid to die in peace.
Kara stood on the deck, a place almost more familiar to her than her own bed. Before her, a Heavy Raider rested, door open and awaiting passengers. This ship, this very specific one, had delivered her, Helo, and Athena from Caprica to the Astral Queen all those years ago, sitting unused and abandoned. Now, it would once again serve its purpose to her, this time in returning something to the cylons that had sought the remaining humans from one end of the universe to the next. She wouldn’t be going this time, and now walking around the open ramp of it and glancing in, she began to have those second thoughts she’d managed to ignore for the last few weeks.
Lee approached from behind, flight suit on and helmet hanging from his hand. “I know what you’re thinking, you could do a better job. Right?” He tried to smile for her to force away some of their mutual worry. It was like the tyllium mission all over again, with Kara sitting on the sidelines while Lee handled it for her.
“Of course I could.” She returned a tight smile and that alone gave away everything. This had been her plan, her call, and now faced with the end of it, she wanted to run to the CIC and jump them past the redline, anywhere far enough from where they were to protect Lee. If something happened to him, she knew it would be her fault. There would be no one else to blame. That wouldn’t be something she would be able to live with, no matter how hard she tried. She would follow him to their next life if need be.
“I’ll be okay,” Lee said as he leaned in and whispered, kissing the skin just in front of her ear while he pulled away. His blue eyes commanded the attention of her golden green ones, free hand seeking out one of her own until their fingers were tangled together.
Kara swallowed hard over the lump in her throat and gave a halfhearted nod to him. She came in close and rested her ear to his upper chest, a familiar act by now, her other arm sliding around his body to hold him close to her. They had given up hiding their affection a long time ago, especially with the news of their marriage moving through the crew that remained with them since their departure from the civilians. As much as anyone may have thought they sometimes wanted to tear each other apart, the relationship that existed between them was quite clear to anyone with ears or eyes.
He kissed her scalp and her forehead, anywhere on her that he could reach from where she held herself. Lee had to keep telling himself that he would return, that this wasn’t the end for the two of them. If he didn’t, he’d truly start to believe the worst in the situation, and he knew just how thoughts like that could have an effect on the outcome. In his head, it became a mantra: I will come home, I will come home, I will come home.
She sniffled, trying to be strong for him, only lifting her head and creating an inch of space between them when she felt some hint of control over herself again. Kara looked up to him, hand to his cheek, thumb smoothing over the edge of his brow. “Do you remember when you bandaged mine for me?” She asked as she repeatedly stroked over that spot of skin on him.
Lee nodded. “I just got back from New Caprica.”
“And I just destroyed Pegasus.” They both smiled at the very thought.
“Was it worth it?” He asked.
Kara’s head raised in ascent. “For you, it was.”
He took the initiative, diving in as his mouth touched down against hers, starving to taste her and feel her all at once. From Kara, he could hear the soft whine from the back of her throat as she kissed him, the quiet noise expressing the pain they both felt at his impending departure. With eyes shut tight, he could feel the prickle of tears building as they persisted and their intensity faded until their lips were soft and gentle. When they stopped, they sighed in unison, foreheads pressed in tight with their noses touching together. It was the most peaceful feeling either of them had ever felt, despite what was to come.
“No risks,” she said with her eyes still closed.
Lee agreed with her. “None.”
“Just do your job and come home.”
“I promise,” he whispered. “You better be waiting.”
She nodded against him, knowing she would. If Lee didn’t return, she’d wait there forever for him. Galactica could leave her in a Raptor behind if the crew had to. She would wait until her body gave up.
They pulled apart eventually, though neither wanted to, only the sound of approaching footsteps forcing them out of the comfort zone they’d created with one another. Kara turned away and wiped her eyes, only looking back to Lee and the others present when she felt better put together. “You ready?” Kara asked Leoben and D’Anna.
“We have been,” Leoben answered for both of them.
Lee nodded to Kara, squeezing her hand tight one last time before he moved away and into the ship. D’Anna followed in behind him, Leoben picking up the rear. Before he made it all the way inside, Kara called to the male cylon.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
Her shoulders raised in a shrug, unsure of how to express herself. “I don’t know. For this. For showing me that temple.” His manner of doing so hadn’t been exactly good, but seeing that symbol had awakened something inside of her that day.
“Our father made me long before you, but I think in a way he knew you would need me. To be your guide and show you the way. I didn’t understand it and I was wrong about the things I did,” he stopped and looked in towards the ship before putting his eyes back on her, “to you and Apollo. Now I know my role and I’m atoning for it.”
“On the basestar,” Kara started. “The hybrid told me something. She said I was the harbinger of death. That I have led mankind to their end.” She didn’t know why she was mentioning it to Leoben of all people.
He could see the worry on her face and his head shook. “You are the harbinger of death, but not for your people. For mine. And you did lead mankind to the end, the end of their journey, Kara.”
His words brought relief to her, whether she could ever admit it or not. Perhaps he was just comforting her in her time of need and doubt, but she could choose to believe it if she wanted to. Desperately, she needed to believe he was right. Nothing would make any of them forget about the things that transpired over the years. Even still, she saw the faint marks on Lee from where she knew he had suffered at the cylon’s hands on New Caprica, but his apologies, his words, they were something of a start. “If you can make it back, Leoben, I’ll have someone waiting for you. You know where.”
Leoben’s head dipped and without a word, he headed into the ship. The door shut behind him, the Heavy Raider coming to life before a couple of the people moonlighting as deck crew began to load it back onto the lift to reach the landing pod.
-
“Galactica, Apollo. Will be engaging FTL system and jumping to coordinates.”
“Apollo, Actual. Good hunting, we’ll be waiting.”
Inside the Heavy Raider, the ship he’d spent the last few weeks learning to properly pilot when they weren’t wasting fuel jumping across the universe to locate most of the cylon fleet, Lee sat at the pilots’ seat. His helmet was beside him on the floor, brought along as a precaution, though he inwardly knew that if it got to a point where he had to to put it on, chances were that he was dead anyway. If there was damage to the ship so severe that the atmosphere was compromised, the likelihood that the FTL would work wasn’t favorable. For Kara’s sake though, he’d played along and donned the flight suit to offer what bit of calm to her he was able to.
“5… 4… 3… 2… 1… Jump.”
He counted off, feeling the pull of the FTL as the cylon ship blinked out of existence beside Galactica and reappeared a few light years away. Part of him had hoped to see nothing when he arrived, perhaps the hybrid had been wrong after all. He could return home to Galactica with the bad news, but maybe this time Kara would back off and retreat. It wasn’t the case though, and before him was a series of basestars suspended against the black of space. Never before had he seen so many of the ships clustered together, although the cylons’ arrival at New Caprica had come close. The basestars weren’t alone, however. Along with a few Raiders and Heavy Raiders flying by were shapes he remembered from the days when Pegasus had first shown up. He’d gotten up close and personal with one of the resurrection ships when flying the blackbird that day. There was another ship there as well, and not until Leoben approached behind him and spoke, did he knew what it was.
“The hub,” the cylon said. “Cavil must be planning something if it’s here with them.”
“What’s the hub?” Lee asked, uneasy with how close Leoben was. It was two against one now, D’Anna and Leoben versus him. They might have been near death, barely walking on their own at all by now, but Lee knew their strength could still be far more than his, especially teamed together. Should they both have conspired to get him out here and kill him, it would be easy. It would have even been a smart move, Lee mused.
“Resurrection hub. The main ship that coordinates downloading and where my sisters are boxed up because of the things I did,” D’Anna began from where she sat towards the back. “What my dear brother is getting at, is that this couldn’t have worked out any better for you. You were hoping to infect a resurrection ship or two and have it spread slowly. You get the virus into that one, though…” she didn’t finish.
“It’ll transmit down to all the rest, any thing that’s in range.”
Lee watched the ship dead ahead of them. His worries of having other cylons ship detect their presence and somehow know that a human and traitorous cylons were inside faded away for a moment. Kara’s plan would not only work, he knew, but it would really signal the end. They wouldn’t be able to come back from this. His chest pounded at the thought and the realization that came with it. They could pull this off. “How do we know where you’ll download to? There’s other resurrection ships nearby.”
Leoben stepped away from Lee and back towards the space of the cabin behind them. “The hub’s the default. We only go to the other ships if it’s out of range.”
Apollo released the seatbelt he wore, setting the Heavy Raider onto a prepared flight path around the basestars present, hoping to buy them some time. The two cylons were waiting, both of their weakening bodies seated and looking to him. Though he’d agreed to his role in all of this, he felt his determination wavering. On New Caprica, Lee had been one of the leaders of the resistance there. He’d killed his share of skinjobs both personally and through direct orders to others. Out in his Viper, he must have killed hundreds of the Raiders over the years. These two shouldn’t have been any different, and yet it felt like a new game entirely.
They weren’t armed, they weren’t threatening his life or anyone’s around him. In fact, they’d been cooperative since their arrival. Both of them had their own reasons for it, with Leoben wanting to be near Kara and D’Anna wanting to seek out more information on the Final Five, as well as living in fear that if she were to return to Cavil anytime soon, she would have been boxed like all the rest of her line. This step though, this was their decision, one no one was requiring them to go through with. They could have easily bound their hands and legs, hauled them into the Heavy Raider and taken their lives without their permission. Kara, though, had insisted they be given the ability to make the choice for themselves. Like he had told her and like the image of her had told him after her death, the cylons would get to chose to be the person they wanted to be. There was no guarantee that they would make it out safely. Not only would the other cylons be suspicious of them immediately because of the faces they wore, but the illness would still be inside of them, keeping them teetering on death. The odds truly weren’t in their favor.
D’Anna kept quiet beside her brother, resigned to her fate already. She had been the holdout in making her decision, and for weeks, Leoben had thought he would be making this trip alone with Lee Adama. She had given in though, and the news from Natalie upon her arrival on Galactica had only bolstered her further. She had expected to be boxed by the Ones if she returned either in her body or a download immediately following the incident on the planet with the temple and her interest in finding the Final Five. Her sisters, though, she didn’t expect them to pay the price for her own actions. There was a loneliness that went along with knowing she was the last that remained conscious and all she now wanted to do was to return that feeling to Cavil.
Leoben’s eyes were set on Lee as he approached, watching the nervous tension in his executioner. “I thought you’d be happy to do this,” he said, sounding surprised.
“I thought I would be, too.”
“All the things my brothers and I did to you…”
Lee turned and shut his eyes for a few seconds, transferring his subconscious back to the grey planet and what had happened to him in that jail cell he’d lived in for a portion of the occupation. He could feel every pain inflicted onto him again and again, like they were still fresh wounds and bruises, but the anger he used to associate with it was no longer there as strong as it had been before. His eyes opened and his hand went for the gun at his hip, clicking the safety off. “Maybe a year ago I would have wanted to do this. Six months ago.”
“And now?”
“I’ll have to live my life knowing I killed two unarmed people in cold blood, without a just reason.”
The fact that Lee had used the term people to describe them was not missed by Leoben. “This is what you came here to do. We’ll be reborn, we’ll serve our purpose. It’s okay, Lee Adama. We’re giving you permission.”
His head shook and he paced a few feet away from both of them, listening to the cylon speak. All at once, he stopped, strength and courage breathed into him. His hand raised and he steadied his arm, the barrel of the handgun pointed towards D’Anna. “I’m sorry,” Lee said, and with the expert aim he’d honed over the last ten years, he pulled the trigger, sending a bullet towards her head. Within the same second, his arm shifted to correct the angle, finger at the trigger a second time to deliver the final shot into Leoben.
Alone with nothing but the two lifeless bodies slumped over and bleeding, Lee lowered his gun and slid down against the opposite bulkhead as he listened to the ringing in his ears.
-
The more time passed, the worse Kara began to feel. There wasn’t a strict timetable for Lee’s return, due to how little they knew about what he would encounter when he jumped in to the mass of other ships they hoped to be there. For all she knew, though, he jumped into the heart of a basestar or they’d been discovered immediately before they even had time to jump out to safety again. She kept strong for those around her, but inside, she was tearing herself apart. She was a fool for doing all of this. Right now, he should have been beside her while they were on Earth, or at least waiting to be allowed down on to the planet. All their plans together, she was sure she’d thrown them away.
“Anything?” She asked Hoshi. He shook his head and her shoulders slumped as she pressed her hands into the plotting table, using it for support. The battlestar had remained on alert and in condition two since he left. They didn’t expect to be found by the cylons, especially not after how much time had passed between when the two separate sides had last met, but spending a few hours prepared for anything wasn’t exactly the worst idea.
Her eyes shut, lost in thoughts of the last few weeks they’d shared together. It was what had been keeping her going since his departure, attempting to convince herself that she would once again feel his touch. Zak had been her place of peace for so long, recalling the feel of his mouth and fingers against her, but now that job had been handed over to his older brother and the man that was able to call himself her husband. She heard the faint sound of one of the nearby computers, drowning it out until Gaeta’s voice rose.
“Sir! One cylon ship on DRADIS.”
They had no way of knowing if it was friendly or not, but Kara’s eyes blinked open, immediately on the DRADIS screen above her to confirm it for herself. This could be their death if a radiological alarm was triggered as the ship neared them, but she held out hope. Hoshi left the line open for any incoming transmissions and when one finally came through, Kara nearly cried in the middle of CIC.
“Galactica, Apollo. Mission accomplished.”
She flashbacked to the tyllium mission yet again, when that very room had been filled to the brim, the Admiral and President beside her, cheering on as Lee reported his success back then as well. He was safe and he hadn’t let them down. Cheering erupted around her from those on duty and the elation she felt was unparalleled.
“You took too frakking long,” she said into the comm, her language not exactly representing an Admiral.
His quiet laughter was heard over the line before he spoke. “I brought you another present. Find Natalie and meet me on the deck.”
-
In the ready room, Kara stood between Lee and the Six they’d come to know as Natalie. As the assumed leader of the separatist cylons, she’d quickly become the most trusted of the sea of similar faces that now flooded the bowels of Galactica. It had been barely over half a day since they’d made contact with her and welcomed, some less enthusiastically than others, the remaining cylons on board. Kara hadn’t even begun to contemplate the reactions of her father, the people of Earth, or even her own fellow Colonials, when she showed up with tens of the cylons in tow, finding herself too plagued by more immediate problems needing solving.
With the lights dimmed, the trio watched video footage recorded by the camera they’d placed on the Heavy Raider before it left. That had been Lee’s idea and a squeeze of her hand into his was given in silent thanks for his thinking ahead.
“After…” he started but stopped, not sure of how to put words to what he’d done to both D’Anna and Leoben on the ship. They all knew what he’d been sent to do, even without having to say it, but that didn’t make it any easier. Natalie had voiced her opposition to it all upon her arrival, hearing exactly what her sister and brother intended to go through with, but Leoben had been the one to convince her that it was necessary in the end. They all had to make sacrifices to correct the things they’d played a part in. “…I took the Heavy Raider around the hub just to get a look since I hadn’t been detected. I was trying to look for a weak point, like we found on the resurrection ship.” His free hand raised to motion in the general direction of one portion of the ship projected in front of them. “That’s the FTL?” He asked the cylon.
Natalie nodded, arms crossed over her chest. “What are you going to do? Go in, blow the FTL on the hub and then try to take out the basestars? There’s too many and even with the Heavy Raiders we brought, you won’t do enough damage.” She was skeptical of what they were suggesting.
“We don’t need to even go that far.” The last thing Kara wanted to do was put the few pilots she had into Vipers and leave them at risk of death so close to the end. They had only a fraction of their original numbers along for the ride, and those that had stayed hadn’t even been running much of a CAP lately, too busy with keeping the ship otherwise functioning. “Blow the FTL so it can’t jump away, destroy it with the nukes we have, get the frak out of there. And we’ve got just the ship that can help.”
-
It took two solid days to prepare Galactica for mission ready. The cylons had even pitched in to do their part to keep the battlestar alive, working side by side, hand in hand, with the crew. The stakes were high and the time for finding fault with the machines that helped carry their load wasn’t then, so with grudges and bitterness put aside, the mixed crew members enacted a moratorium on their hatred.
Kara was tired, but renewed with hope. Success wasn’t an abstract idea anymore. They had, in fact, completed their mission with delivering Leoben and D’Anna back to their fleet, bringing their illness with them. Either way, the remaining cylons were on their way to a quickly oncoming death without the cure that she knew she held within her grasp. This, however, would bring them there a little sooner, knocking out their ability to download and prolong the inevitable. They would be equals now, human and cylon with only one life, and now the machines actually had the chance to meet the end of it.
“Set the clock,” Kara said to Hoshi.
With a nod, the digital clock on all the ship’s onboard computers were set to zero as he spoke into his headset that blared throughout the entire ship. “All clocks set at zero, signaling mission start.”
Apollo, floating in space in a very distinct Mark II, the one with nary a scratch on her and reading his wife’s name, hit a series of buttons to sync his clock up with the one ticking away on Galactica. With the battlestar being too far away for voice transmissions once he was in cylon territory, they were adhering to a specific time table of events. One second off could have meant the difference between life and death, most notably and likely, his own. He watched the numbers continue to escalate, heart beat even faster in rhythm as his hand flexed, curling tightly around the stick between his knees. “Preparing for jump,” he said, the FTL inside the heart of Kara’s bird already primed and ready. Just like the days before, the countdown began in his own words along with the tick of the clock until his mark was reached. “Jump.”
He had less than a minute from when the Viper reappeared in the cylon airspace to when he had to engage and destroy the FTL of the hub before the hybrid on board would jump it away to safety when his presence was noted. Lee pulled on the throttle as hard as he could, pushing the Mark II to its absolute limit as it sped around the irregular shape of the hub. He’d already jumped in pretty tight to the ship using coordinates he’d taken in the Heavy Raider, but he would still have to cover some ground before he got where he needed to be. His DRADIS was absolutely useless to him, covered in the dots of cylon ships, so he flew on sight alone rather than his instruments. Every muscle in his body strained from the lack of use. It wasn’t that he’d been inactive in the last months, but the kind of stress one’s body endured in a Viper was unlike any exercise that could be done outside of the cockpit, a place he hadn’t been for a long time.
Raiders weren’t far off, he knew that already, and as he approached the FTL drive, his body ached and pounded with the fear that the ship would jump away at the last second. Not only would it ruin the chance they had at destroying it, but he would find death in the wake of the jump. “Just like the blackbird,” he said to himself, mostly for comfort as he prepared to fire. Finger on the trigger, Lee took aim and shot with the same precision he had with the gun in his hand when he’d brought that temporary death to Leoben and D’Anna two days prior. He held on tight, not releasing until the explosion came, signaling the destruction he’d come for. There were Raiders in the distance, he could see them through his canopy, and Lee pulled hard again on the stick until the ship dropped down and barreled away. With his other hand, Lee reached to the computer ahead of him, ready to trigger the FTL to take him to the last known coordinates.
His hand pounded into the button and he shut his eyes, expecting to feel the push inward on himself and then the release as he reappeared at the rendezvous point. Nothing happened. Eyes opened in a panic and Lee found himself still surrounded by the cylon enemy ships. “Frak!” He cursed. It was only then that he recalled the major detail he and Kara had both overlooked. When they’d found her in the Ionian nebula and gone through her nav system details, there hadn’t been a thing. Nothing. No other coordinates. No prior locations. Lee expected to be able to jump to his prior location with the flick of a switch, but they had overlooked a glaring error in the plan.
Lee searched the depths of his mind for the series of twelve digits to where Galactica awaited. With fatigue and stress, however, his mind went blank. There was nothing there, an empty cavern where the location should have been. Sweat pooled at his brows and Lee cursed again as a shot was fired across his cockpit. He jerked the stick and swerved aside, spinning to dodge the Raiders that had finally caught up with him. The clock was still half a minute off from Galactica’s arrival. He knew then with the number of Raiders on him, he would never make it to last that long. Shots fired again and this time he felt his ship be hit, sensors reading damage to the tail and the wing.
“I’m sorry, Kara,” he said to no one. Earlier, he’d used thoughts of the blackbird and the resurrection ship mission to calm himself down. Now, though, he realized what he’d done by bringing mention of that to the forefront. Though he’d completed his duty then and there, Lee had almost died in the end, the blackbird in pieces and a hole in his suit. Maybe he really had condemned himself to death. It seemed fitting that what were almost his last words then would be his last words again.
A group of Raiders gained on him and from near point blank range, they fired at the back of the Mark II.
-
Galactica jumped in to the space around the collection of basestars, resurrection ships, and the hub. Using similar coordinates to the ones Lee had used in bringing the Mark II right alongside the hub, the battlestar arrived, poised and ready. In the CIC, Gaeta already had the nuclear missile launch tubes open, redirecting their aim at the stranded resurrection hub before them. He waited for the word.
Kara looked to DRADIS, mentally counting the numbers they faced. It was certain death if they weren’t quick enough, but they had double, triple, and even quadruple checked the status of their FTL before heading in, and it remained full functioning and ready. What she didn’t see was Lee’s ship on the screen, though it didn’t worry her. He hadn’t jumped back to their location before they left, but it was likely they had just missed one another during the jump. He had gotten out. That, or his ship had been destroyed completely, not leaving even his emergency beacon behind. No, she told herself. He had gotten out. He would be waiting for her on the other side.
“Prepare with suppressing fire in case any Raiders get near us,” she ordered. With a look to Hoshi, she nodded. “Patch me in.”
Comm was already in hand as the signal from the battlestar went out into the general space around them, for whomever was listening. “This is Admiral Thrace of the Colonial Fleet. I’m requesting to speak to whoever is in charge.”
There was silence and she knew she couldn’t afford to wait very long before the Raiders would be upon them, hoping to take out their own FTL in response. Just as she was about to speak again, a voice came through, that of a One.
“I see you’ve delivered yourselves directly into our hands.”
“I have,” she said with a hint of smugness that was all Starbuck. “And I brought something for you. Maybe you got it a few days ago.”
“Oh, so you were the one who returned my wayward Three and Two to me. I regret that they’ve since gone missing,” the transmission came through.
She worried over their safety and fate, but pushed it aside. “As you’re all starting to feel right now, I didn’t return them empty handed. In your resurrection ships now is a virus that you won’t be able to purge quick enough to be of any use. Within the next few days, those of you infected will be dead. Those of you who aren’t, will follow soon after.”
“Why would you expect us to believe that?”
“You don’t have to, but I know you’ve been starting to feel it.” She had no true way of verifying it, but something in his voice gave it away. Everything had, for once, gone according to plan. “Here are some other things you should start to believe. I have the Final Five. I’ve been to Earth, I have it, and it’s mine. I also have the cure for the virus that’s going to kill you. If you surrender,” she paused and took a deep breath. “We can negotiate. I happen to think that anyone can change so I’m letting you make your choice. One last chance.” Her eyes kept on the clock and on DRADIS, watching the advancing Raiders approach. They were running out of time.
The One laughed on the other end at the absurdity of her offer. “You expect us to surrender? You’re one battlestar surrounded by my base ships and they’re all taking aim.”
“I already have every last nuclear warhead pointed at your resurrection hub and I have the word of a Six you might know as Natalie,” Kara looked to Gaeta and nodded her head, having made her decision. She had given them the choice and he had turned it down. Kara had promised herself she would at least offer them that. A chance to repent. “…that damage to it will take out all resurrection.” Before her words finished, each launch tube emptied, shooting out the remaining nuclear missiles directly at the resurrection hub.
“You did this to yourself,” Kara said finally, putting the phone back into its cradle as the ship’s sensors confirmed the first hit on the hub and simultaneously registered hits to Galactica’s own hull from passing Raiders. This was it. “Jump!”
-
A few of Galactica’s alarms sounded damage warnings once the ship arrived back at the rendezvous point. Compartments were sealed automatically and vented to fight off the fires that had broken out, but damage remained manageable and minimal. Once the worst was taken care of, the celebrating began for the second time in the last few days. This time it was exultant, with the promise of Earth and their friends and families on the horizon for them. Kara smiled, cheeks aching from the grin she wore and the tension that melted out of her. She hugged Gaeta, the anger that had been between them for weeks instantly gone. Hoshi came next, patting to his back before she released him. “Make sure the landing pods are ready for Major Apollo to come in,” she told him.
“Yes, sir,” he said and stepped back towards his station. His face went pale, absolutely white as the blood drained out of it. Kara watched, alarmed, as he looked back to her. “Admiral, sir…” His voice quaked in a way she’d never heard it before, not even at the battle for New Caprica. “We’re alone. Apollo isn’t here.”
Her breath was forced out of her and she scrambled back to the main table, looking to DRADIS. He had to have been wrong, she told herself, but there it was. Blank and empty. “Open up the comm, maybe his ship got damaged!” She ordered with a yell, the phone already to her ear. “Apollo, do you read me? Do you frakking read! This isn’t a game, Lee!”
The room quieted around her as the members of the staff began to understand the situation. They hadn’t read Apollo on DRADIS back with the cylons, as expected, which meant he was supposed to have made it here. If he wasn’t here, not after all this time, Apollo and the Mark II hadn’t made it out alive.
“Please,” she spoke quietly into the comm, tears falling down her cheeks from the corners of her eyes. “Lee, please, answer me.” If she begged enough, she was sure it would be a cruel joke he was playing on her, payback for that first time she’d flown the blackbird and disappeared on him. “Apollo, Gods damn it!” A sudden burst of anger broke through her sadness for only a second. Inside, she was absolutely broken, knowing how Lee had felt when he had watched her death. This was a feeling she never wanted to know, hadn’t even let herself imagine having to go through. Now there she was, facing the truth that she had let him die. He had given his life for her, just as he had promised he would.
Kara released the comm, letting it fall towards the floor, though it never quite hit, being held back by the cord it was attached to. She crumpled there, letting gravity take hold of her for the moment. On her knees, she sobbed helplessly for her loss. Her body didn’t feel like it was hers any longer, foreign to her as she detached from it and her physical surroundings. She wasn’t sure how long she stayed like that for, but felt the brush of skin to her arms. When she looked up, Sam was crouched beside her, pain evident in his eyes.
“I’m sorry, Kara,” he said, but it felt hollow compared to how he knew she felt. He wasn’t a stranger to it, having lived through her death as well. They had been divorced by then, but that didn’t make it any less.
She let herself be held by him, eyes shut tight as for a second she was able to imagine it was Lee with his arms around her. It had gone according to plan, he’d landed the Viper and now he was holding her, still in his flight suit. They would return to Earth and live by the water. Laura would be well and living with Adama only a few miles away. All the people she loved, Sam, her father, Helo and his wife and child, even Hot Dog, wouldn’t be far either. Cally would find it in her to forgive Galen for what he was and they’d raise their son together. Every night she would make dinner with Lee beside her and they’d make love afterward, quietly, so they didn’t wake the child asleep in the next room. A son or a daughter, she had never been able to decide.
Sam rubbed her back and she was torn away from the world she built for herself in her head to retreat to when she needed it most. Kara sat there, unwilling to open her eyes just yet. “I’m sorry, Lee,” she whispered softly.
The words broke Sam’s heart. Though he hadn’t wanted their own marriage to end, the last thing he wanted for her was to feel loss of this magnitude. She was happy with Lee and Sam knew the weeks of their marriage hadn’t been enough for her. He felt greedy and selfish for having her for as long as he once did.
They stayed like that for awhile longer, the rest of the officers keeping CIC running for her until Kara managed the strength to pull away from Sam. Whoever had sent for him after her collapse had done the right thing, although nothing would ever be exactly right for her again. She pulled away from her former husband, hands wiping away at her face in shame and embarrassment. She would mourn later, mourn for the rest of her life, but she was the Admiral now, and she’d already taken things one step too far though she didn’t think anyone would fault her for it, considering everything they’d suffered through over the last few years. She nodded a thank you to Sam and took his offered hands, rising to her feet at the command table. Kara looked to him for support, borrowing from Sam’s strength as she fought through her grief for the good of her people.
“Plug in the second rendezvous coordinates,” she ordered, eyes reddened and watery still.
Wordlessly, Gaeta obeyed, speaking only to let her know the status. He counted down the second jump over Galactica’s speakers and the battlestar engaged the FTL, arriving light years away. This time, there was a blip on their DRADIS. Kara didn’t let her heart hope at it being Lee, though. If there was something here, she knew who it was.
“Didn’t think you were coming,” Leoben’s voice came over through the signal from a Heavy Raider motionless in space. He coughed into the line, sounding weaker than he had before as the virus ravaged through his system with the serum finally fully out of his system entirely.
“Are you strong enough to land?” She asked, her voice empty.
Though he could tell something was wrong by the tone she used, Leoben wisely kept quiet. “We’ll find out.”
-
A half hour later, the Heavy Raider, a new one this time and presumably stolen from whatever ship Leoben had departed from, sat empty on the deck. D’Anna, as it turned out, hadn’t come back with him, though Leoben had tried to convince her to. Her sisters were going to die boxed up and if that were so, she would be with them. She had met the Five, she had even met the other four, including Eugenia who had identified herself as the person responsible for most of her creation. There would be so much more to learn from them, but it would be meaningless in the end. She had stayed behind.
Leoben lay in the abandoned sickbay on a stretcher, one of two that remained on Galactica after most of the medical goods had been sent with the civilian fleet. A medic removed the needle from his arm and covered the injection site with a bandage before departing. Kara watched from a few feet away within his privacy curtain, eyes on the monitors around him keeping track of his heart rate and breathing. It had been close for him in the end. Another few hours and he would have died in that Heavy Raider, alone and permanently this time.
“Are you okay?” She asked, looking at his sweat covered face.
“I will be.” It hurt to speak, in fact it hurt for him to do much of anything, but he persisted. “Where’s Apollo?” He already knew the answer. Her sullen face and the fact that she was here at all told him what had happened.
She didn’t say anything to him, instead crossed her arms as she sat in the chair beside his bed. “Thank you, again, for doing what you did.”
He sighed and looked to the ceiling. “I’ll still have to face God for the things I’ve done, to your people and now to mine.” Silence extended before he spoke again. “You’ll see Lee again, eventually, in the next life.”
It wasn’t what she wanted to hear, then again, nothing would have been what she wanted. Though she was only marginally keeping things together on the outside after Sam had literally helped pick her up off the floor, it was only the title she held and that responsibility keeping her going. Once they reached Earth and the Colonial Fleet was formally disbanded, she would have nothing. She felt like a shell, and wondered how she ever felt any different in her entire life. This pain was so consuming that she couldn’t remember what it was like to not have it with her, even if only hours before Lee had been next to her, or in the middle of the previous night, Lee had been inside of her, whispering how he loved her in the cover of darkness.
Kara stood. “We’re starting the course back to Earth. With any luck, my father will be waiting there for us still.”
“He waited years for you.” He said to reassure her.
Leoben needn’t finish his thought for her to understand. Dreilide Thrace had waited years for her, he wouldn’t give up now. Likely, Kara knew, he had been waiting outside of Earth for her since the moment he had been able to return. Leaving Leoben alone, Kara left the room.
-
The crew worked around the clock, jumping through the night cycle to return them to Earth as soon as possible. Cylon technology would have done the job faster, but slaving Galactica’s FTL to one of the Heavy Raiders would have taken even longer than just using the inferior capabilities to get to their destination. Kara had returned to her room at some point to find sleep, but there was none to be had. She laid in her bed, breathing in the musky scent of Lee on their sheets. If she could have drowned in it, she would have welcomed it. To meet death surrounded by him would have been more than she could have ever asked for.
The phone rang in her quarters and she forced herself up, dragging her body towards the handset. She lifted it to her ear, listening in on the other end. It was Hoshi, back on for his morning shift after getting a few hours sleep just as she had attempted to. They were a pair of jumps away from Earth and she wanted to be there for it. It was a wake up call, of sorts.
She made her way to the bathroom, leaning over the running sink to splash some water to her face. Her hands rubbed the hand towel to her face to dry it off, taking a look at herself in the mirror. All she saw was the shoulder length hair she now had, the edges having been trimmed weeks ago to even out the butchering she’d given it. Kara fingered the ends with her left hand, catching a glimpse of her wedding ring in the mirror. Then and there, in that exact moment, she came to a decision and found serenity inside of it.
Kara finished getting dressed and reported to the CIC afterward, that calm still persisting through her. It was reliable and it was hers. The second to last jump finished and Kara personally went to the FTL station, typing in the final coordinates for Earth just as she had done the first time they’d visited the planet, her and Lee together in that Raptor. That had been before they knew it was barren and empty. Back at the command table, Kara spoke into her phone to talk to Galactica’s crew. “This is the Admiral. The next jump will put us back at Earth, where we will convene with the Meridian once again and follow them to our new home. You have made me proud,” she spoke from the heart, thinking of all the people that had trusted her enough to come along. “And I thank you for following me out. I couldn’t have asked for a better crew and a better job well done. Your lives are about to begin again. So say we all.”
With the comm turned off and returned to its place, Kara steeled herself for the last thing she owed to all the people on her ship. “Prepare for jump.”
The planetary body known as Earth appeared on DRADIS as Galactica arrived in orbit for the second time. They weren’t alone out there and the familiar symbol of the Meridian also showed on the screen above. Kara breathed a sigh of relief, feeling that completeness that came with a job well done.
“Galactica, Meridian.”
“Meridian, Actual,” she said aloud into the handset, recognizing the voice of her father. He had waited, as promised.
The formality was gone once Dreilide found his daughter on the other end of the line. “God I’m glad to see you. It’s been so long, we weren’t sure.”
“Well, we made it,” she said in a clipped tone.
“Was it a success?”
It was a conversation she didn’t want to be having, but she held firm anyway. “Successfully delivered the virus to the cylons. We found the resurrection hub as well and destroyed it.” She had to stop for a moment, gathering her strength back up. “We also picked up around sixty Sixes, Eights, and Twos. They sided against the others and helped us in the end.”
“You did well, Kara,” he said, sounding like a proud father, and that he was. “Do you need time or are you ready to start to head out?”
“Dad…” Kara’s voice shook as she spoke. “I’m not going with you. I can’t.”
“What?” He was alarmed and everyone listening in knew it. “Kara, what are you-where are you going to go?”
“There’s nothing for me there anymore.” Her eyes watered as she looked down to the table in front of her. “Lee died. He didn’t make it and it’s my fault. I can’t go to Earth and tell his father what I did. I need you to tell him I’m sorry.” Her words flowed out as quickly as possible as she lost her composure. “Tell him I’m sorry I couldn’t come home either.”
“Kara-” He stopped and the line went quiet. A moment later, there was a voice on the other end again.
“You’re out of your mind if you think I’m letting you back out, Kara,” Lee’s voice cut through.
She was sure she was hallucinating until she saw the faces of those around her. It had to be a joke, a cruel joke. “Stop frakking around-this isn’t funny,” she snarled out.
“You’re right, it’s not funny, you promised me Earth after everything I did and now you’re trying to renege on your word.” There was some humor to his voice. Or maybe it was just happiness.
“Lee?”
“I’m sorry,” this time he was serious as he spoke. “I thought I was dead, Kara, the FTL wouldn’t bring me back-we forgot that it wasn’t saving any of the old locations. I had too many Raiders on me, I couldn’t even think to try to remember where to go, so I typed in the only coordinates I did know. Earth.” The humanoid-cylon technology, like the cylon technology, was far ahead what the Colonials had, leading to the need for less jumps and longer distance maneuvers. It had been his saving grace, along with the song she had taught him, those numbers forever engrained into his head. One one two three. Six five three six. Five three two one. In the panic, it was the only thing he had left.
Kara laughed, the sound mixing with her tears as she listened to him speak. She had been ready to get into a Raptor and head out into the depths of space to vent herself, taking her life for the chance of being beside him in Elysium. The Gods, or God, or whoever was out there, had smiled upon her this time. They had brought Lee back to her in the end.
-
Though it was against protocol, Kara left the CIC in the hands of Lieutenant Hoshi for the very last jump towards their final home, the second Earth. They’d spent the last day following the Meridian jump for jump towards their destination with Kara at the helm, Lee as the second in command again. From her father, she had heard all about what the last few weeks had been like for the Colonials. They were just beginning to move them slowly down to the planet as space became available, but had brought food, other goods, and even medical attention up to the ships for the welfare of the people. Adama and Roslin had been brought down immediately, however, and there was news was that even after all these weeks, Laura remained alive with Bill by her side.
Like them, Kara was at Lee’s side, standing next to him in the observation room. They were alone, both the Admiral and the XO having given up their duties to the lower ranks. It was a single jump, the very last Galactica would probably ever make, and perhaps the most historic. They should have been there to oversee it all and to be with their people through to the end, but it wasn’t where they needed to be. Where they needed to be was right there, with front row seats to the planet they would make their lives upon together.
Kara wrapped an arm around his back and he returned it, his arm around her shoulders as they held each other tight and close. She looked up and over to him, his head turning at the same time to watch her. Around them, the speakers of Galactica resounded Gaeta’s voice, counting down. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.
Her eyes shut for the jump, reopening once they were through. Coming just into view of Galactica was the beautiful blue orb of a planet, white clouds swirling and stirring over the green land masses down below. It was beautiful, in all meanings of the word. Kara stepped up towards the glass, Lee coming with her, their arms still around one another. She reached a palm out and pressed it to the thick transparent material, like she could touch the very planet itself. Earth.
“It’s beautiful,” Lee said.
“It is.” It made her feel small, stunning her into submission. Caprica had been beautiful from orbit. The original Earth had been as well, but nothing compared to this. Perhaps it was all in their heads, though neither cared to think of such an explanation. No, nothing could ruin this.
Kara lifted her hand, folding back all of her fingers until just her index remained extended out. The pad of it touched to the glass, as if pointing towards a specific spot on the planet in the distance. “Right there, we’ll live right there.”
Lee laughed with the kind of warmth only she gave him and pointed his own finger at another spot. “What about there?”
“Anywhere.” She smiled up at him, finding him already doing the same.
“Anywhere,” Lee repeated. “So long as it’s with you.”
-
-
-
Post-Fic Author’s Notes: Writing this fic from start to completion in only a little over a month has been both amazing and extremely challenging. There were so many times I wanted to just take a break for awhile, but I powered through it to finish it as fast as I could. Some chapters were harder to write and I struggled with them for a few days, and other ones came out perfect in a couple of hours. This is the only thing I’ve ever written and at around 194,000 words… it has been quite the trip. It ended up far longer than I ever thought it would be.
I wanted to say thank you to everyone who has commented and/or read the story along the way (and anyone who stumbles upon this in the future!). Those who commented really kept me going and I’m not sure I would have ever finished it, certainly not as quickly as I did, without knowing you guys were enjoying it and reading all my updates. Big thanks and apologies to anyone who ever read an update right after I posted it, because there were usually a ton of spelling/grammatical/etc errors still in it (there still are some in there now, I know). I would read every chapter a few times before I posted, but I guess I had something like tunnel vision and skipped over a lot of the mistakes, knowing what I wanted and expected to read. After I updated, I would inevitably end up reading them again a few hours later and make a million more corrections along the way.
The idea for this story came about when talking to a friend after she finished watching BSG for the first time. We got talking about the ending of the show and different ways it could have gone. I actually liked the ending despite its flaws, but like all of you, I knew there were so many other ways it could have been spun. My first thought was what a lot of fans of the show shared in the fourth season, that Kara was part cylon and the 7th model, Daniel, was actually her father. Then I thought about, well what if there had been more survivors from Earth instead of just the Five, and Kara’s father was actually one of them? I’m not a big believer in ‘God did it!’ stories, so this was my correction to it, where Kara’s own father (and friends) sort of orchestrated a path for Kara to follow, should she have been lucky enough to survive. I’m also a total sucker for a story with some kind of sappy underlying message like a father really loving his daughter, despite his faults and mistakes (in regards to both Adama and Dreilide). Thus, this story began.
I really enjoyed writing some of the flashback scenes into Dreilide/Socrata/child Kara’s life. With the exception of a few minutes in Maelstrom, the picture painted of Kara’s mother was always pretty two-dimensional and harsh (which is understandable, given the abuse Kara suffered and the way she would have viewed her mother because of it), but I never felt like she could be that easy of a character. In Maelstrom, we saw that Socrata had actually kept all those small memories from her child and saw pictures of mother and daughter, smiling and happy. I didn’t want to just leave Socrata as some innately evil and cruel person, but show how she easily fell with the things going on around her, and how she hadn’t always been that way. I also wanted to show some of the parallels between mother and daughter, despite them being very different people in the end.
This story also became hugely about the idea of choice, though I didn’t start out with those explicit intentions. One thing that always fascinated me about BSG (besides all the obvious) is the thought of, what does it mean to be human? Is it the biological and DNA or is it something else? Is it the choices we make that determine who and what we are and if we’re worthy of being called human? Most of the characters throughout the story were given multiple chances to make that decision about themselves and others, to be accepting or not, and whether they felt who the person was overrode exactly what they were.
Now that this is finished, I may work on shorter one-shots regarding this fandom and maybe some others. I hate to say it, but I actually have already begun thinking of ideas for a muuuuch shorter (and probably fluffier, less plot driven) sequel to this story. There were a lot of story lines I hinted at but never really explored much because I felt it would hurt with the flow of the story (Eugenia & Sam & the Sixes/Cally & Galen/etc), so a short sequel might give me the chance to resolve some of them. I might write it just for myself or for you guys, depending on if anyone is even interested on reading what happened to all our favorite people when they reached Earth and just all the troubles that came along with it. I’m seriously going to miss these versions of the characters after letting them consume my entire life for the last month.
As always, I appreciate comments of any kind (hate the story? Love it? Want to talk random theories about the show?) from those who have read (especially if you’ve never commented before!). I have no real way of knowing how many people have read my story since I only have a free account, so the comments are loved. I look forward to hearing what you guys thought about these two final chapters as well as the whole of the story, now that it has been completed.
If you've enjoyed reading this, please recommend it to anyone else who you think might enjoy it!
Many, many, many thanks to everyone.
author:
apodixis
spoilers: Through all seasons, though this takes place in an AU starting at the very end of season 2.
pairings: kara/lee, kara/sam
overall fic rating: R/NC-17
word count: 8,957
notes: See http://apodixis.livejournal.com/685.html for more information.
summary: If God isn't leading the fleet to Earth, can they ever find it?
The final two chapters have been posted simultaneously, make sure you read them both. Enjoy!
Galactica, with a crew of just under a hundred plus sixty four Twos, Sixes, and Eights, sat one jump away from the location indicated by the hybrid on the demolished basestar. Faced down by the final death, those that remained living on the cylon ship had chosen to side with Kara and the humans. It hadn’t been just that, though, the fact that Kara also had the Final Five-or at least a few of them on the battlestar-had done the necessary persuading. They were their makers, and in some ways, held a lot of answers for them. The Five, along with the boxing of the Three line, had been why they’d gone to war with Cavil and his followers to begin with. There was no question of it once Kara had made the threat to leave them behind, they would abandon the basestar and the hybrid to die in peace.
Kara stood on the deck, a place almost more familiar to her than her own bed. Before her, a Heavy Raider rested, door open and awaiting passengers. This ship, this very specific one, had delivered her, Helo, and Athena from Caprica to the Astral Queen all those years ago, sitting unused and abandoned. Now, it would once again serve its purpose to her, this time in returning something to the cylons that had sought the remaining humans from one end of the universe to the next. She wouldn’t be going this time, and now walking around the open ramp of it and glancing in, she began to have those second thoughts she’d managed to ignore for the last few weeks.
Lee approached from behind, flight suit on and helmet hanging from his hand. “I know what you’re thinking, you could do a better job. Right?” He tried to smile for her to force away some of their mutual worry. It was like the tyllium mission all over again, with Kara sitting on the sidelines while Lee handled it for her.
“Of course I could.” She returned a tight smile and that alone gave away everything. This had been her plan, her call, and now faced with the end of it, she wanted to run to the CIC and jump them past the redline, anywhere far enough from where they were to protect Lee. If something happened to him, she knew it would be her fault. There would be no one else to blame. That wouldn’t be something she would be able to live with, no matter how hard she tried. She would follow him to their next life if need be.
“I’ll be okay,” Lee said as he leaned in and whispered, kissing the skin just in front of her ear while he pulled away. His blue eyes commanded the attention of her golden green ones, free hand seeking out one of her own until their fingers were tangled together.
Kara swallowed hard over the lump in her throat and gave a halfhearted nod to him. She came in close and rested her ear to his upper chest, a familiar act by now, her other arm sliding around his body to hold him close to her. They had given up hiding their affection a long time ago, especially with the news of their marriage moving through the crew that remained with them since their departure from the civilians. As much as anyone may have thought they sometimes wanted to tear each other apart, the relationship that existed between them was quite clear to anyone with ears or eyes.
He kissed her scalp and her forehead, anywhere on her that he could reach from where she held herself. Lee had to keep telling himself that he would return, that this wasn’t the end for the two of them. If he didn’t, he’d truly start to believe the worst in the situation, and he knew just how thoughts like that could have an effect on the outcome. In his head, it became a mantra: I will come home, I will come home, I will come home.
She sniffled, trying to be strong for him, only lifting her head and creating an inch of space between them when she felt some hint of control over herself again. Kara looked up to him, hand to his cheek, thumb smoothing over the edge of his brow. “Do you remember when you bandaged mine for me?” She asked as she repeatedly stroked over that spot of skin on him.
Lee nodded. “I just got back from New Caprica.”
“And I just destroyed Pegasus.” They both smiled at the very thought.
“Was it worth it?” He asked.
Kara’s head raised in ascent. “For you, it was.”
He took the initiative, diving in as his mouth touched down against hers, starving to taste her and feel her all at once. From Kara, he could hear the soft whine from the back of her throat as she kissed him, the quiet noise expressing the pain they both felt at his impending departure. With eyes shut tight, he could feel the prickle of tears building as they persisted and their intensity faded until their lips were soft and gentle. When they stopped, they sighed in unison, foreheads pressed in tight with their noses touching together. It was the most peaceful feeling either of them had ever felt, despite what was to come.
“No risks,” she said with her eyes still closed.
Lee agreed with her. “None.”
“Just do your job and come home.”
“I promise,” he whispered. “You better be waiting.”
She nodded against him, knowing she would. If Lee didn’t return, she’d wait there forever for him. Galactica could leave her in a Raptor behind if the crew had to. She would wait until her body gave up.
They pulled apart eventually, though neither wanted to, only the sound of approaching footsteps forcing them out of the comfort zone they’d created with one another. Kara turned away and wiped her eyes, only looking back to Lee and the others present when she felt better put together. “You ready?” Kara asked Leoben and D’Anna.
“We have been,” Leoben answered for both of them.
Lee nodded to Kara, squeezing her hand tight one last time before he moved away and into the ship. D’Anna followed in behind him, Leoben picking up the rear. Before he made it all the way inside, Kara called to the male cylon.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
Her shoulders raised in a shrug, unsure of how to express herself. “I don’t know. For this. For showing me that temple.” His manner of doing so hadn’t been exactly good, but seeing that symbol had awakened something inside of her that day.
“Our father made me long before you, but I think in a way he knew you would need me. To be your guide and show you the way. I didn’t understand it and I was wrong about the things I did,” he stopped and looked in towards the ship before putting his eyes back on her, “to you and Apollo. Now I know my role and I’m atoning for it.”
“On the basestar,” Kara started. “The hybrid told me something. She said I was the harbinger of death. That I have led mankind to their end.” She didn’t know why she was mentioning it to Leoben of all people.
He could see the worry on her face and his head shook. “You are the harbinger of death, but not for your people. For mine. And you did lead mankind to the end, the end of their journey, Kara.”
His words brought relief to her, whether she could ever admit it or not. Perhaps he was just comforting her in her time of need and doubt, but she could choose to believe it if she wanted to. Desperately, she needed to believe he was right. Nothing would make any of them forget about the things that transpired over the years. Even still, she saw the faint marks on Lee from where she knew he had suffered at the cylon’s hands on New Caprica, but his apologies, his words, they were something of a start. “If you can make it back, Leoben, I’ll have someone waiting for you. You know where.”
Leoben’s head dipped and without a word, he headed into the ship. The door shut behind him, the Heavy Raider coming to life before a couple of the people moonlighting as deck crew began to load it back onto the lift to reach the landing pod.
-
“Galactica, Apollo. Will be engaging FTL system and jumping to coordinates.”
“Apollo, Actual. Good hunting, we’ll be waiting.”
Inside the Heavy Raider, the ship he’d spent the last few weeks learning to properly pilot when they weren’t wasting fuel jumping across the universe to locate most of the cylon fleet, Lee sat at the pilots’ seat. His helmet was beside him on the floor, brought along as a precaution, though he inwardly knew that if it got to a point where he had to to put it on, chances were that he was dead anyway. If there was damage to the ship so severe that the atmosphere was compromised, the likelihood that the FTL would work wasn’t favorable. For Kara’s sake though, he’d played along and donned the flight suit to offer what bit of calm to her he was able to.
“5… 4… 3… 2… 1… Jump.”
He counted off, feeling the pull of the FTL as the cylon ship blinked out of existence beside Galactica and reappeared a few light years away. Part of him had hoped to see nothing when he arrived, perhaps the hybrid had been wrong after all. He could return home to Galactica with the bad news, but maybe this time Kara would back off and retreat. It wasn’t the case though, and before him was a series of basestars suspended against the black of space. Never before had he seen so many of the ships clustered together, although the cylons’ arrival at New Caprica had come close. The basestars weren’t alone, however. Along with a few Raiders and Heavy Raiders flying by were shapes he remembered from the days when Pegasus had first shown up. He’d gotten up close and personal with one of the resurrection ships when flying the blackbird that day. There was another ship there as well, and not until Leoben approached behind him and spoke, did he knew what it was.
“The hub,” the cylon said. “Cavil must be planning something if it’s here with them.”
“What’s the hub?” Lee asked, uneasy with how close Leoben was. It was two against one now, D’Anna and Leoben versus him. They might have been near death, barely walking on their own at all by now, but Lee knew their strength could still be far more than his, especially teamed together. Should they both have conspired to get him out here and kill him, it would be easy. It would have even been a smart move, Lee mused.
“Resurrection hub. The main ship that coordinates downloading and where my sisters are boxed up because of the things I did,” D’Anna began from where she sat towards the back. “What my dear brother is getting at, is that this couldn’t have worked out any better for you. You were hoping to infect a resurrection ship or two and have it spread slowly. You get the virus into that one, though…” she didn’t finish.
“It’ll transmit down to all the rest, any thing that’s in range.”
Lee watched the ship dead ahead of them. His worries of having other cylons ship detect their presence and somehow know that a human and traitorous cylons were inside faded away for a moment. Kara’s plan would not only work, he knew, but it would really signal the end. They wouldn’t be able to come back from this. His chest pounded at the thought and the realization that came with it. They could pull this off. “How do we know where you’ll download to? There’s other resurrection ships nearby.”
Leoben stepped away from Lee and back towards the space of the cabin behind them. “The hub’s the default. We only go to the other ships if it’s out of range.”
Apollo released the seatbelt he wore, setting the Heavy Raider onto a prepared flight path around the basestars present, hoping to buy them some time. The two cylons were waiting, both of their weakening bodies seated and looking to him. Though he’d agreed to his role in all of this, he felt his determination wavering. On New Caprica, Lee had been one of the leaders of the resistance there. He’d killed his share of skinjobs both personally and through direct orders to others. Out in his Viper, he must have killed hundreds of the Raiders over the years. These two shouldn’t have been any different, and yet it felt like a new game entirely.
They weren’t armed, they weren’t threatening his life or anyone’s around him. In fact, they’d been cooperative since their arrival. Both of them had their own reasons for it, with Leoben wanting to be near Kara and D’Anna wanting to seek out more information on the Final Five, as well as living in fear that if she were to return to Cavil anytime soon, she would have been boxed like all the rest of her line. This step though, this was their decision, one no one was requiring them to go through with. They could have easily bound their hands and legs, hauled them into the Heavy Raider and taken their lives without their permission. Kara, though, had insisted they be given the ability to make the choice for themselves. Like he had told her and like the image of her had told him after her death, the cylons would get to chose to be the person they wanted to be. There was no guarantee that they would make it out safely. Not only would the other cylons be suspicious of them immediately because of the faces they wore, but the illness would still be inside of them, keeping them teetering on death. The odds truly weren’t in their favor.
D’Anna kept quiet beside her brother, resigned to her fate already. She had been the holdout in making her decision, and for weeks, Leoben had thought he would be making this trip alone with Lee Adama. She had given in though, and the news from Natalie upon her arrival on Galactica had only bolstered her further. She had expected to be boxed by the Ones if she returned either in her body or a download immediately following the incident on the planet with the temple and her interest in finding the Final Five. Her sisters, though, she didn’t expect them to pay the price for her own actions. There was a loneliness that went along with knowing she was the last that remained conscious and all she now wanted to do was to return that feeling to Cavil.
Leoben’s eyes were set on Lee as he approached, watching the nervous tension in his executioner. “I thought you’d be happy to do this,” he said, sounding surprised.
“I thought I would be, too.”
“All the things my brothers and I did to you…”
Lee turned and shut his eyes for a few seconds, transferring his subconscious back to the grey planet and what had happened to him in that jail cell he’d lived in for a portion of the occupation. He could feel every pain inflicted onto him again and again, like they were still fresh wounds and bruises, but the anger he used to associate with it was no longer there as strong as it had been before. His eyes opened and his hand went for the gun at his hip, clicking the safety off. “Maybe a year ago I would have wanted to do this. Six months ago.”
“And now?”
“I’ll have to live my life knowing I killed two unarmed people in cold blood, without a just reason.”
The fact that Lee had used the term people to describe them was not missed by Leoben. “This is what you came here to do. We’ll be reborn, we’ll serve our purpose. It’s okay, Lee Adama. We’re giving you permission.”
His head shook and he paced a few feet away from both of them, listening to the cylon speak. All at once, he stopped, strength and courage breathed into him. His hand raised and he steadied his arm, the barrel of the handgun pointed towards D’Anna. “I’m sorry,” Lee said, and with the expert aim he’d honed over the last ten years, he pulled the trigger, sending a bullet towards her head. Within the same second, his arm shifted to correct the angle, finger at the trigger a second time to deliver the final shot into Leoben.
Alone with nothing but the two lifeless bodies slumped over and bleeding, Lee lowered his gun and slid down against the opposite bulkhead as he listened to the ringing in his ears.
-
The more time passed, the worse Kara began to feel. There wasn’t a strict timetable for Lee’s return, due to how little they knew about what he would encounter when he jumped in to the mass of other ships they hoped to be there. For all she knew, though, he jumped into the heart of a basestar or they’d been discovered immediately before they even had time to jump out to safety again. She kept strong for those around her, but inside, she was tearing herself apart. She was a fool for doing all of this. Right now, he should have been beside her while they were on Earth, or at least waiting to be allowed down on to the planet. All their plans together, she was sure she’d thrown them away.
“Anything?” She asked Hoshi. He shook his head and her shoulders slumped as she pressed her hands into the plotting table, using it for support. The battlestar had remained on alert and in condition two since he left. They didn’t expect to be found by the cylons, especially not after how much time had passed between when the two separate sides had last met, but spending a few hours prepared for anything wasn’t exactly the worst idea.
Her eyes shut, lost in thoughts of the last few weeks they’d shared together. It was what had been keeping her going since his departure, attempting to convince herself that she would once again feel his touch. Zak had been her place of peace for so long, recalling the feel of his mouth and fingers against her, but now that job had been handed over to his older brother and the man that was able to call himself her husband. She heard the faint sound of one of the nearby computers, drowning it out until Gaeta’s voice rose.
“Sir! One cylon ship on DRADIS.”
They had no way of knowing if it was friendly or not, but Kara’s eyes blinked open, immediately on the DRADIS screen above her to confirm it for herself. This could be their death if a radiological alarm was triggered as the ship neared them, but she held out hope. Hoshi left the line open for any incoming transmissions and when one finally came through, Kara nearly cried in the middle of CIC.
“Galactica, Apollo. Mission accomplished.”
She flashbacked to the tyllium mission yet again, when that very room had been filled to the brim, the Admiral and President beside her, cheering on as Lee reported his success back then as well. He was safe and he hadn’t let them down. Cheering erupted around her from those on duty and the elation she felt was unparalleled.
“You took too frakking long,” she said into the comm, her language not exactly representing an Admiral.
His quiet laughter was heard over the line before he spoke. “I brought you another present. Find Natalie and meet me on the deck.”
-
In the ready room, Kara stood between Lee and the Six they’d come to know as Natalie. As the assumed leader of the separatist cylons, she’d quickly become the most trusted of the sea of similar faces that now flooded the bowels of Galactica. It had been barely over half a day since they’d made contact with her and welcomed, some less enthusiastically than others, the remaining cylons on board. Kara hadn’t even begun to contemplate the reactions of her father, the people of Earth, or even her own fellow Colonials, when she showed up with tens of the cylons in tow, finding herself too plagued by more immediate problems needing solving.
With the lights dimmed, the trio watched video footage recorded by the camera they’d placed on the Heavy Raider before it left. That had been Lee’s idea and a squeeze of her hand into his was given in silent thanks for his thinking ahead.
“After…” he started but stopped, not sure of how to put words to what he’d done to both D’Anna and Leoben on the ship. They all knew what he’d been sent to do, even without having to say it, but that didn’t make it any easier. Natalie had voiced her opposition to it all upon her arrival, hearing exactly what her sister and brother intended to go through with, but Leoben had been the one to convince her that it was necessary in the end. They all had to make sacrifices to correct the things they’d played a part in. “…I took the Heavy Raider around the hub just to get a look since I hadn’t been detected. I was trying to look for a weak point, like we found on the resurrection ship.” His free hand raised to motion in the general direction of one portion of the ship projected in front of them. “That’s the FTL?” He asked the cylon.
Natalie nodded, arms crossed over her chest. “What are you going to do? Go in, blow the FTL on the hub and then try to take out the basestars? There’s too many and even with the Heavy Raiders we brought, you won’t do enough damage.” She was skeptical of what they were suggesting.
“We don’t need to even go that far.” The last thing Kara wanted to do was put the few pilots she had into Vipers and leave them at risk of death so close to the end. They had only a fraction of their original numbers along for the ride, and those that had stayed hadn’t even been running much of a CAP lately, too busy with keeping the ship otherwise functioning. “Blow the FTL so it can’t jump away, destroy it with the nukes we have, get the frak out of there. And we’ve got just the ship that can help.”
-
It took two solid days to prepare Galactica for mission ready. The cylons had even pitched in to do their part to keep the battlestar alive, working side by side, hand in hand, with the crew. The stakes were high and the time for finding fault with the machines that helped carry their load wasn’t then, so with grudges and bitterness put aside, the mixed crew members enacted a moratorium on their hatred.
Kara was tired, but renewed with hope. Success wasn’t an abstract idea anymore. They had, in fact, completed their mission with delivering Leoben and D’Anna back to their fleet, bringing their illness with them. Either way, the remaining cylons were on their way to a quickly oncoming death without the cure that she knew she held within her grasp. This, however, would bring them there a little sooner, knocking out their ability to download and prolong the inevitable. They would be equals now, human and cylon with only one life, and now the machines actually had the chance to meet the end of it.
“Set the clock,” Kara said to Hoshi.
With a nod, the digital clock on all the ship’s onboard computers were set to zero as he spoke into his headset that blared throughout the entire ship. “All clocks set at zero, signaling mission start.”
Apollo, floating in space in a very distinct Mark II, the one with nary a scratch on her and reading his wife’s name, hit a series of buttons to sync his clock up with the one ticking away on Galactica. With the battlestar being too far away for voice transmissions once he was in cylon territory, they were adhering to a specific time table of events. One second off could have meant the difference between life and death, most notably and likely, his own. He watched the numbers continue to escalate, heart beat even faster in rhythm as his hand flexed, curling tightly around the stick between his knees. “Preparing for jump,” he said, the FTL inside the heart of Kara’s bird already primed and ready. Just like the days before, the countdown began in his own words along with the tick of the clock until his mark was reached. “Jump.”
He had less than a minute from when the Viper reappeared in the cylon airspace to when he had to engage and destroy the FTL of the hub before the hybrid on board would jump it away to safety when his presence was noted. Lee pulled on the throttle as hard as he could, pushing the Mark II to its absolute limit as it sped around the irregular shape of the hub. He’d already jumped in pretty tight to the ship using coordinates he’d taken in the Heavy Raider, but he would still have to cover some ground before he got where he needed to be. His DRADIS was absolutely useless to him, covered in the dots of cylon ships, so he flew on sight alone rather than his instruments. Every muscle in his body strained from the lack of use. It wasn’t that he’d been inactive in the last months, but the kind of stress one’s body endured in a Viper was unlike any exercise that could be done outside of the cockpit, a place he hadn’t been for a long time.
Raiders weren’t far off, he knew that already, and as he approached the FTL drive, his body ached and pounded with the fear that the ship would jump away at the last second. Not only would it ruin the chance they had at destroying it, but he would find death in the wake of the jump. “Just like the blackbird,” he said to himself, mostly for comfort as he prepared to fire. Finger on the trigger, Lee took aim and shot with the same precision he had with the gun in his hand when he’d brought that temporary death to Leoben and D’Anna two days prior. He held on tight, not releasing until the explosion came, signaling the destruction he’d come for. There were Raiders in the distance, he could see them through his canopy, and Lee pulled hard again on the stick until the ship dropped down and barreled away. With his other hand, Lee reached to the computer ahead of him, ready to trigger the FTL to take him to the last known coordinates.
His hand pounded into the button and he shut his eyes, expecting to feel the push inward on himself and then the release as he reappeared at the rendezvous point. Nothing happened. Eyes opened in a panic and Lee found himself still surrounded by the cylon enemy ships. “Frak!” He cursed. It was only then that he recalled the major detail he and Kara had both overlooked. When they’d found her in the Ionian nebula and gone through her nav system details, there hadn’t been a thing. Nothing. No other coordinates. No prior locations. Lee expected to be able to jump to his prior location with the flick of a switch, but they had overlooked a glaring error in the plan.
Lee searched the depths of his mind for the series of twelve digits to where Galactica awaited. With fatigue and stress, however, his mind went blank. There was nothing there, an empty cavern where the location should have been. Sweat pooled at his brows and Lee cursed again as a shot was fired across his cockpit. He jerked the stick and swerved aside, spinning to dodge the Raiders that had finally caught up with him. The clock was still half a minute off from Galactica’s arrival. He knew then with the number of Raiders on him, he would never make it to last that long. Shots fired again and this time he felt his ship be hit, sensors reading damage to the tail and the wing.
“I’m sorry, Kara,” he said to no one. Earlier, he’d used thoughts of the blackbird and the resurrection ship mission to calm himself down. Now, though, he realized what he’d done by bringing mention of that to the forefront. Though he’d completed his duty then and there, Lee had almost died in the end, the blackbird in pieces and a hole in his suit. Maybe he really had condemned himself to death. It seemed fitting that what were almost his last words then would be his last words again.
A group of Raiders gained on him and from near point blank range, they fired at the back of the Mark II.
-
Galactica jumped in to the space around the collection of basestars, resurrection ships, and the hub. Using similar coordinates to the ones Lee had used in bringing the Mark II right alongside the hub, the battlestar arrived, poised and ready. In the CIC, Gaeta already had the nuclear missile launch tubes open, redirecting their aim at the stranded resurrection hub before them. He waited for the word.
Kara looked to DRADIS, mentally counting the numbers they faced. It was certain death if they weren’t quick enough, but they had double, triple, and even quadruple checked the status of their FTL before heading in, and it remained full functioning and ready. What she didn’t see was Lee’s ship on the screen, though it didn’t worry her. He hadn’t jumped back to their location before they left, but it was likely they had just missed one another during the jump. He had gotten out. That, or his ship had been destroyed completely, not leaving even his emergency beacon behind. No, she told herself. He had gotten out. He would be waiting for her on the other side.
“Prepare with suppressing fire in case any Raiders get near us,” she ordered. With a look to Hoshi, she nodded. “Patch me in.”
Comm was already in hand as the signal from the battlestar went out into the general space around them, for whomever was listening. “This is Admiral Thrace of the Colonial Fleet. I’m requesting to speak to whoever is in charge.”
There was silence and she knew she couldn’t afford to wait very long before the Raiders would be upon them, hoping to take out their own FTL in response. Just as she was about to speak again, a voice came through, that of a One.
“I see you’ve delivered yourselves directly into our hands.”
“I have,” she said with a hint of smugness that was all Starbuck. “And I brought something for you. Maybe you got it a few days ago.”
“Oh, so you were the one who returned my wayward Three and Two to me. I regret that they’ve since gone missing,” the transmission came through.
She worried over their safety and fate, but pushed it aside. “As you’re all starting to feel right now, I didn’t return them empty handed. In your resurrection ships now is a virus that you won’t be able to purge quick enough to be of any use. Within the next few days, those of you infected will be dead. Those of you who aren’t, will follow soon after.”
“Why would you expect us to believe that?”
“You don’t have to, but I know you’ve been starting to feel it.” She had no true way of verifying it, but something in his voice gave it away. Everything had, for once, gone according to plan. “Here are some other things you should start to believe. I have the Final Five. I’ve been to Earth, I have it, and it’s mine. I also have the cure for the virus that’s going to kill you. If you surrender,” she paused and took a deep breath. “We can negotiate. I happen to think that anyone can change so I’m letting you make your choice. One last chance.” Her eyes kept on the clock and on DRADIS, watching the advancing Raiders approach. They were running out of time.
The One laughed on the other end at the absurdity of her offer. “You expect us to surrender? You’re one battlestar surrounded by my base ships and they’re all taking aim.”
“I already have every last nuclear warhead pointed at your resurrection hub and I have the word of a Six you might know as Natalie,” Kara looked to Gaeta and nodded her head, having made her decision. She had given them the choice and he had turned it down. Kara had promised herself she would at least offer them that. A chance to repent. “…that damage to it will take out all resurrection.” Before her words finished, each launch tube emptied, shooting out the remaining nuclear missiles directly at the resurrection hub.
“You did this to yourself,” Kara said finally, putting the phone back into its cradle as the ship’s sensors confirmed the first hit on the hub and simultaneously registered hits to Galactica’s own hull from passing Raiders. This was it. “Jump!”
-
A few of Galactica’s alarms sounded damage warnings once the ship arrived back at the rendezvous point. Compartments were sealed automatically and vented to fight off the fires that had broken out, but damage remained manageable and minimal. Once the worst was taken care of, the celebrating began for the second time in the last few days. This time it was exultant, with the promise of Earth and their friends and families on the horizon for them. Kara smiled, cheeks aching from the grin she wore and the tension that melted out of her. She hugged Gaeta, the anger that had been between them for weeks instantly gone. Hoshi came next, patting to his back before she released him. “Make sure the landing pods are ready for Major Apollo to come in,” she told him.
“Yes, sir,” he said and stepped back towards his station. His face went pale, absolutely white as the blood drained out of it. Kara watched, alarmed, as he looked back to her. “Admiral, sir…” His voice quaked in a way she’d never heard it before, not even at the battle for New Caprica. “We’re alone. Apollo isn’t here.”
Her breath was forced out of her and she scrambled back to the main table, looking to DRADIS. He had to have been wrong, she told herself, but there it was. Blank and empty. “Open up the comm, maybe his ship got damaged!” She ordered with a yell, the phone already to her ear. “Apollo, do you read me? Do you frakking read! This isn’t a game, Lee!”
The room quieted around her as the members of the staff began to understand the situation. They hadn’t read Apollo on DRADIS back with the cylons, as expected, which meant he was supposed to have made it here. If he wasn’t here, not after all this time, Apollo and the Mark II hadn’t made it out alive.
“Please,” she spoke quietly into the comm, tears falling down her cheeks from the corners of her eyes. “Lee, please, answer me.” If she begged enough, she was sure it would be a cruel joke he was playing on her, payback for that first time she’d flown the blackbird and disappeared on him. “Apollo, Gods damn it!” A sudden burst of anger broke through her sadness for only a second. Inside, she was absolutely broken, knowing how Lee had felt when he had watched her death. This was a feeling she never wanted to know, hadn’t even let herself imagine having to go through. Now there she was, facing the truth that she had let him die. He had given his life for her, just as he had promised he would.
Kara released the comm, letting it fall towards the floor, though it never quite hit, being held back by the cord it was attached to. She crumpled there, letting gravity take hold of her for the moment. On her knees, she sobbed helplessly for her loss. Her body didn’t feel like it was hers any longer, foreign to her as she detached from it and her physical surroundings. She wasn’t sure how long she stayed like that for, but felt the brush of skin to her arms. When she looked up, Sam was crouched beside her, pain evident in his eyes.
“I’m sorry, Kara,” he said, but it felt hollow compared to how he knew she felt. He wasn’t a stranger to it, having lived through her death as well. They had been divorced by then, but that didn’t make it any less.
She let herself be held by him, eyes shut tight as for a second she was able to imagine it was Lee with his arms around her. It had gone according to plan, he’d landed the Viper and now he was holding her, still in his flight suit. They would return to Earth and live by the water. Laura would be well and living with Adama only a few miles away. All the people she loved, Sam, her father, Helo and his wife and child, even Hot Dog, wouldn’t be far either. Cally would find it in her to forgive Galen for what he was and they’d raise their son together. Every night she would make dinner with Lee beside her and they’d make love afterward, quietly, so they didn’t wake the child asleep in the next room. A son or a daughter, she had never been able to decide.
Sam rubbed her back and she was torn away from the world she built for herself in her head to retreat to when she needed it most. Kara sat there, unwilling to open her eyes just yet. “I’m sorry, Lee,” she whispered softly.
The words broke Sam’s heart. Though he hadn’t wanted their own marriage to end, the last thing he wanted for her was to feel loss of this magnitude. She was happy with Lee and Sam knew the weeks of their marriage hadn’t been enough for her. He felt greedy and selfish for having her for as long as he once did.
They stayed like that for awhile longer, the rest of the officers keeping CIC running for her until Kara managed the strength to pull away from Sam. Whoever had sent for him after her collapse had done the right thing, although nothing would ever be exactly right for her again. She pulled away from her former husband, hands wiping away at her face in shame and embarrassment. She would mourn later, mourn for the rest of her life, but she was the Admiral now, and she’d already taken things one step too far though she didn’t think anyone would fault her for it, considering everything they’d suffered through over the last few years. She nodded a thank you to Sam and took his offered hands, rising to her feet at the command table. Kara looked to him for support, borrowing from Sam’s strength as she fought through her grief for the good of her people.
“Plug in the second rendezvous coordinates,” she ordered, eyes reddened and watery still.
Wordlessly, Gaeta obeyed, speaking only to let her know the status. He counted down the second jump over Galactica’s speakers and the battlestar engaged the FTL, arriving light years away. This time, there was a blip on their DRADIS. Kara didn’t let her heart hope at it being Lee, though. If there was something here, she knew who it was.
“Didn’t think you were coming,” Leoben’s voice came over through the signal from a Heavy Raider motionless in space. He coughed into the line, sounding weaker than he had before as the virus ravaged through his system with the serum finally fully out of his system entirely.
“Are you strong enough to land?” She asked, her voice empty.
Though he could tell something was wrong by the tone she used, Leoben wisely kept quiet. “We’ll find out.”
-
A half hour later, the Heavy Raider, a new one this time and presumably stolen from whatever ship Leoben had departed from, sat empty on the deck. D’Anna, as it turned out, hadn’t come back with him, though Leoben had tried to convince her to. Her sisters were going to die boxed up and if that were so, she would be with them. She had met the Five, she had even met the other four, including Eugenia who had identified herself as the person responsible for most of her creation. There would be so much more to learn from them, but it would be meaningless in the end. She had stayed behind.
Leoben lay in the abandoned sickbay on a stretcher, one of two that remained on Galactica after most of the medical goods had been sent with the civilian fleet. A medic removed the needle from his arm and covered the injection site with a bandage before departing. Kara watched from a few feet away within his privacy curtain, eyes on the monitors around him keeping track of his heart rate and breathing. It had been close for him in the end. Another few hours and he would have died in that Heavy Raider, alone and permanently this time.
“Are you okay?” She asked, looking at his sweat covered face.
“I will be.” It hurt to speak, in fact it hurt for him to do much of anything, but he persisted. “Where’s Apollo?” He already knew the answer. Her sullen face and the fact that she was here at all told him what had happened.
She didn’t say anything to him, instead crossed her arms as she sat in the chair beside his bed. “Thank you, again, for doing what you did.”
He sighed and looked to the ceiling. “I’ll still have to face God for the things I’ve done, to your people and now to mine.” Silence extended before he spoke again. “You’ll see Lee again, eventually, in the next life.”
It wasn’t what she wanted to hear, then again, nothing would have been what she wanted. Though she was only marginally keeping things together on the outside after Sam had literally helped pick her up off the floor, it was only the title she held and that responsibility keeping her going. Once they reached Earth and the Colonial Fleet was formally disbanded, she would have nothing. She felt like a shell, and wondered how she ever felt any different in her entire life. This pain was so consuming that she couldn’t remember what it was like to not have it with her, even if only hours before Lee had been next to her, or in the middle of the previous night, Lee had been inside of her, whispering how he loved her in the cover of darkness.
Kara stood. “We’re starting the course back to Earth. With any luck, my father will be waiting there for us still.”
“He waited years for you.” He said to reassure her.
Leoben needn’t finish his thought for her to understand. Dreilide Thrace had waited years for her, he wouldn’t give up now. Likely, Kara knew, he had been waiting outside of Earth for her since the moment he had been able to return. Leaving Leoben alone, Kara left the room.
-
The crew worked around the clock, jumping through the night cycle to return them to Earth as soon as possible. Cylon technology would have done the job faster, but slaving Galactica’s FTL to one of the Heavy Raiders would have taken even longer than just using the inferior capabilities to get to their destination. Kara had returned to her room at some point to find sleep, but there was none to be had. She laid in her bed, breathing in the musky scent of Lee on their sheets. If she could have drowned in it, she would have welcomed it. To meet death surrounded by him would have been more than she could have ever asked for.
The phone rang in her quarters and she forced herself up, dragging her body towards the handset. She lifted it to her ear, listening in on the other end. It was Hoshi, back on for his morning shift after getting a few hours sleep just as she had attempted to. They were a pair of jumps away from Earth and she wanted to be there for it. It was a wake up call, of sorts.
She made her way to the bathroom, leaning over the running sink to splash some water to her face. Her hands rubbed the hand towel to her face to dry it off, taking a look at herself in the mirror. All she saw was the shoulder length hair she now had, the edges having been trimmed weeks ago to even out the butchering she’d given it. Kara fingered the ends with her left hand, catching a glimpse of her wedding ring in the mirror. Then and there, in that exact moment, she came to a decision and found serenity inside of it.
Kara finished getting dressed and reported to the CIC afterward, that calm still persisting through her. It was reliable and it was hers. The second to last jump finished and Kara personally went to the FTL station, typing in the final coordinates for Earth just as she had done the first time they’d visited the planet, her and Lee together in that Raptor. That had been before they knew it was barren and empty. Back at the command table, Kara spoke into her phone to talk to Galactica’s crew. “This is the Admiral. The next jump will put us back at Earth, where we will convene with the Meridian once again and follow them to our new home. You have made me proud,” she spoke from the heart, thinking of all the people that had trusted her enough to come along. “And I thank you for following me out. I couldn’t have asked for a better crew and a better job well done. Your lives are about to begin again. So say we all.”
With the comm turned off and returned to its place, Kara steeled herself for the last thing she owed to all the people on her ship. “Prepare for jump.”
The planetary body known as Earth appeared on DRADIS as Galactica arrived in orbit for the second time. They weren’t alone out there and the familiar symbol of the Meridian also showed on the screen above. Kara breathed a sigh of relief, feeling that completeness that came with a job well done.
“Galactica, Meridian.”
“Meridian, Actual,” she said aloud into the handset, recognizing the voice of her father. He had waited, as promised.
The formality was gone once Dreilide found his daughter on the other end of the line. “God I’m glad to see you. It’s been so long, we weren’t sure.”
“Well, we made it,” she said in a clipped tone.
“Was it a success?”
It was a conversation she didn’t want to be having, but she held firm anyway. “Successfully delivered the virus to the cylons. We found the resurrection hub as well and destroyed it.” She had to stop for a moment, gathering her strength back up. “We also picked up around sixty Sixes, Eights, and Twos. They sided against the others and helped us in the end.”
“You did well, Kara,” he said, sounding like a proud father, and that he was. “Do you need time or are you ready to start to head out?”
“Dad…” Kara’s voice shook as she spoke. “I’m not going with you. I can’t.”
“What?” He was alarmed and everyone listening in knew it. “Kara, what are you-where are you going to go?”
“There’s nothing for me there anymore.” Her eyes watered as she looked down to the table in front of her. “Lee died. He didn’t make it and it’s my fault. I can’t go to Earth and tell his father what I did. I need you to tell him I’m sorry.” Her words flowed out as quickly as possible as she lost her composure. “Tell him I’m sorry I couldn’t come home either.”
“Kara-” He stopped and the line went quiet. A moment later, there was a voice on the other end again.
“You’re out of your mind if you think I’m letting you back out, Kara,” Lee’s voice cut through.
She was sure she was hallucinating until she saw the faces of those around her. It had to be a joke, a cruel joke. “Stop frakking around-this isn’t funny,” she snarled out.
“You’re right, it’s not funny, you promised me Earth after everything I did and now you’re trying to renege on your word.” There was some humor to his voice. Or maybe it was just happiness.
“Lee?”
“I’m sorry,” this time he was serious as he spoke. “I thought I was dead, Kara, the FTL wouldn’t bring me back-we forgot that it wasn’t saving any of the old locations. I had too many Raiders on me, I couldn’t even think to try to remember where to go, so I typed in the only coordinates I did know. Earth.” The humanoid-cylon technology, like the cylon technology, was far ahead what the Colonials had, leading to the need for less jumps and longer distance maneuvers. It had been his saving grace, along with the song she had taught him, those numbers forever engrained into his head. One one two three. Six five three six. Five three two one. In the panic, it was the only thing he had left.
Kara laughed, the sound mixing with her tears as she listened to him speak. She had been ready to get into a Raptor and head out into the depths of space to vent herself, taking her life for the chance of being beside him in Elysium. The Gods, or God, or whoever was out there, had smiled upon her this time. They had brought Lee back to her in the end.
-
Though it was against protocol, Kara left the CIC in the hands of Lieutenant Hoshi for the very last jump towards their final home, the second Earth. They’d spent the last day following the Meridian jump for jump towards their destination with Kara at the helm, Lee as the second in command again. From her father, she had heard all about what the last few weeks had been like for the Colonials. They were just beginning to move them slowly down to the planet as space became available, but had brought food, other goods, and even medical attention up to the ships for the welfare of the people. Adama and Roslin had been brought down immediately, however, and there was news was that even after all these weeks, Laura remained alive with Bill by her side.
Like them, Kara was at Lee’s side, standing next to him in the observation room. They were alone, both the Admiral and the XO having given up their duties to the lower ranks. It was a single jump, the very last Galactica would probably ever make, and perhaps the most historic. They should have been there to oversee it all and to be with their people through to the end, but it wasn’t where they needed to be. Where they needed to be was right there, with front row seats to the planet they would make their lives upon together.
Kara wrapped an arm around his back and he returned it, his arm around her shoulders as they held each other tight and close. She looked up and over to him, his head turning at the same time to watch her. Around them, the speakers of Galactica resounded Gaeta’s voice, counting down. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.
Her eyes shut for the jump, reopening once they were through. Coming just into view of Galactica was the beautiful blue orb of a planet, white clouds swirling and stirring over the green land masses down below. It was beautiful, in all meanings of the word. Kara stepped up towards the glass, Lee coming with her, their arms still around one another. She reached a palm out and pressed it to the thick transparent material, like she could touch the very planet itself. Earth.
“It’s beautiful,” Lee said.
“It is.” It made her feel small, stunning her into submission. Caprica had been beautiful from orbit. The original Earth had been as well, but nothing compared to this. Perhaps it was all in their heads, though neither cared to think of such an explanation. No, nothing could ruin this.
Kara lifted her hand, folding back all of her fingers until just her index remained extended out. The pad of it touched to the glass, as if pointing towards a specific spot on the planet in the distance. “Right there, we’ll live right there.”
Lee laughed with the kind of warmth only she gave him and pointed his own finger at another spot. “What about there?”
“Anywhere.” She smiled up at him, finding him already doing the same.
“Anywhere,” Lee repeated. “So long as it’s with you.”
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Post-Fic Author’s Notes: Writing this fic from start to completion in only a little over a month has been both amazing and extremely challenging. There were so many times I wanted to just take a break for awhile, but I powered through it to finish it as fast as I could. Some chapters were harder to write and I struggled with them for a few days, and other ones came out perfect in a couple of hours. This is the only thing I’ve ever written and at around 194,000 words… it has been quite the trip. It ended up far longer than I ever thought it would be.
I wanted to say thank you to everyone who has commented and/or read the story along the way (and anyone who stumbles upon this in the future!). Those who commented really kept me going and I’m not sure I would have ever finished it, certainly not as quickly as I did, without knowing you guys were enjoying it and reading all my updates. Big thanks and apologies to anyone who ever read an update right after I posted it, because there were usually a ton of spelling/grammatical/etc errors still in it (there still are some in there now, I know). I would read every chapter a few times before I posted, but I guess I had something like tunnel vision and skipped over a lot of the mistakes, knowing what I wanted and expected to read. After I updated, I would inevitably end up reading them again a few hours later and make a million more corrections along the way.
The idea for this story came about when talking to a friend after she finished watching BSG for the first time. We got talking about the ending of the show and different ways it could have gone. I actually liked the ending despite its flaws, but like all of you, I knew there were so many other ways it could have been spun. My first thought was what a lot of fans of the show shared in the fourth season, that Kara was part cylon and the 7th model, Daniel, was actually her father. Then I thought about, well what if there had been more survivors from Earth instead of just the Five, and Kara’s father was actually one of them? I’m not a big believer in ‘God did it!’ stories, so this was my correction to it, where Kara’s own father (and friends) sort of orchestrated a path for Kara to follow, should she have been lucky enough to survive. I’m also a total sucker for a story with some kind of sappy underlying message like a father really loving his daughter, despite his faults and mistakes (in regards to both Adama and Dreilide). Thus, this story began.
I really enjoyed writing some of the flashback scenes into Dreilide/Socrata/child Kara’s life. With the exception of a few minutes in Maelstrom, the picture painted of Kara’s mother was always pretty two-dimensional and harsh (which is understandable, given the abuse Kara suffered and the way she would have viewed her mother because of it), but I never felt like she could be that easy of a character. In Maelstrom, we saw that Socrata had actually kept all those small memories from her child and saw pictures of mother and daughter, smiling and happy. I didn’t want to just leave Socrata as some innately evil and cruel person, but show how she easily fell with the things going on around her, and how she hadn’t always been that way. I also wanted to show some of the parallels between mother and daughter, despite them being very different people in the end.
This story also became hugely about the idea of choice, though I didn’t start out with those explicit intentions. One thing that always fascinated me about BSG (besides all the obvious) is the thought of, what does it mean to be human? Is it the biological and DNA or is it something else? Is it the choices we make that determine who and what we are and if we’re worthy of being called human? Most of the characters throughout the story were given multiple chances to make that decision about themselves and others, to be accepting or not, and whether they felt who the person was overrode exactly what they were.
Now that this is finished, I may work on shorter one-shots regarding this fandom and maybe some others. I hate to say it, but I actually have already begun thinking of ideas for a muuuuch shorter (and probably fluffier, less plot driven) sequel to this story. There were a lot of story lines I hinted at but never really explored much because I felt it would hurt with the flow of the story (Eugenia & Sam & the Sixes/Cally & Galen/etc), so a short sequel might give me the chance to resolve some of them. I might write it just for myself or for you guys, depending on if anyone is even interested on reading what happened to all our favorite people when they reached Earth and just all the troubles that came along with it. I’m seriously going to miss these versions of the characters after letting them consume my entire life for the last month.
As always, I appreciate comments of any kind (hate the story? Love it? Want to talk random theories about the show?) from those who have read (especially if you’ve never commented before!). I have no real way of knowing how many people have read my story since I only have a free account, so the comments are loved. I look forward to hearing what you guys thought about these two final chapters as well as the whole of the story, now that it has been completed.
If you've enjoyed reading this, please recommend it to anyone else who you think might enjoy it!
Many, many, many thanks to everyone.