Ch#1, prompt#25
I didn't sign up for this one, but looking at the list of prompts gave me the idea. I hope it is still ok to post... I haven't seen Maelstrom for ages, so hopefully I haven't made any glaring errors. Please let me know if I have.
Title: Broken Wings
Author: Bookwormsarah
Rating: PG
Genre: Gen
Character/Pairing: Lee, Kara, cameos from a couple of others.
Warnings: unhappy Pilots
Spoilers: Maelstrom
Prompt: #25 What if Lee had grounded Kara?
Summary: An AU Maelstrom. How could she be Starbuck if she couldn’t fly?
There was no other decision to make. She was hallucinating, following bogies that weren’t there, leading other pilots on wild chases through the skies and, as the Chief pointed out, using up precious fuel and bullets in the process. She was going to get herself, or someone else, killed.
She barely reacted when he told her, just stared slightly to his right and nodded. Her wings were the only thing that kept her going, stopped her soul from crumbling away. She was spiralling away from him, lost, hurting so much and there was nothing he could do. Perhaps he could have talked to her, once upon a time. Back before Anders, before Dee, before New Caprica, before everything had become so wonderful and complicated and delicious and wrong. Back when the Twelve Colonies were barely gone, when Boomer was still flying Raptors and thinking she and the Chief had everyone fooled, when he was a captain and she was a lieutenant who loved to wind up the XO. There had been one moment when she had been completely his, but she had been slipping further and further and further. Gone. She was no longer Kara, but she was Starbuck, an empty shell. And he loved her so much.
He continued to send vipers out and keep her at home. She drank, but this wasn’t Starbuck drinking, this was the way that Tigh drank after New Caprica; she drank to cut off her thoughts. He overheard her talking to Helo once, talking about “that fraking mandala” and not being able to sleep. Lee hated Helo for talking to Kara, while he only got Starbuck. But how could she be Starbuck if she couldn’t fly? He found himself constantly watching her for a sign that there was something left, some reason to give her back her wings. She took to wandering along the corridors, seeking something he couldn’t fathom. He followed from a distance, ready to catch her if she fell.
Then the trial of Gaius Baltar started and Lee was assigned to assist. He worked on the case by day and haunted the halls by night, and Dee grew sadder and angrier until finally he moved out. He could watch Starbuck better from the same quarters. He saw how she wasn’t sleeping, how she turned away from the other pilots, how she walked with no purpose.
Then, one night he awoke with a jump and found her gone. A feeling of dread swelled up within him and he slipped on his boots. Nowhere. He went to the mess, to the memorial corridor, even to the hanger deck. There he found two deck hands yawning over the fuel lines on a Raptor while a third was barely visible underneath a Viper’s wing. They nodded at him, and he looked around. Too many gaps. They kept losing birds and only long shifts by the Chief and his crew kept the remaining ones in the air. One of them, Specialist…Neely?, called out as he was turning to leave
“If you are looking for Captain Thrace, Major, you missed her by about five minutes.” Lee stopped.
“Missed her?” Figurski spoke up
“She wanted to get a feel of her bird again now she’s back on flight status.” Lee opened his mouth and then shut it again. Should he take a Viper and follow? His flight suit was back in his quarters, and…no, next stop was CIC.
Gaeta was pulling the late shift and puzzling over something on Dradis with a young Lieutenant. No Dee. Lee was relieved. When Gaeta caught site of him, he jumped to his feet. “Major Adama, we have an unauthorised viper flight, do you...” Lee was at his side in two strides. It could only be one person. He grabbed the intercom
“Viper 319, report”
Just a crackle of static. He tried twice more, by which time the Admiral, with an unerring instinct for problems on deck, appeared. “Starbuck, this is Galactica Actual. Do you read me?” No reply. Gaeta looked across.
“Admiral, launch alert vipers to intercept?” Admiral Adama shook his head.
“Lee?” The Major nodded.
“I’ll go after her, bring her home.”
The panic was rising in him. A few months earlier he would have dismissed it as Starbuck frakking around. Now…now he didn’t want to think about it, just wanted her home, just wanted her back.
Flight suit, launch tubes, open space, frantically searching, following directions from the CIC, calling her on the comm., and all nothing. Then, finally, a faint voice:
“I’m sorry, Lee.”
He recognised the tone. He knew the feeling behind it. “Starbuck, do you copy? Kara? Please, Kara…” But he knew she had given up, she didn’t want to be found.
He searched, and the alert vipers searched, and CIC plotted directions, but no trace of Captain Kara Thrace was found. Lee kept seeing her in the corridors, in the court room, in the crowds of pilots, in the empty bunk. He couldn’t believe that she was gone. He didn’t believe that she was gone. She was Starbuck, and she always came back. But he had heard her voice, heard the finality of the unspoken goodbye, heard the echo of his own voice as he drifted in a torn flight suit.
Gone.
And it was all his fault.
Title: Broken Wings
Author: Bookwormsarah
Rating: PG
Genre: Gen
Character/Pairing: Lee, Kara, cameos from a couple of others.
Warnings: unhappy Pilots
Spoilers: Maelstrom
Prompt: #25 What if Lee had grounded Kara?
Summary: An AU Maelstrom. How could she be Starbuck if she couldn’t fly?
There was no other decision to make. She was hallucinating, following bogies that weren’t there, leading other pilots on wild chases through the skies and, as the Chief pointed out, using up precious fuel and bullets in the process. She was going to get herself, or someone else, killed.
She barely reacted when he told her, just stared slightly to his right and nodded. Her wings were the only thing that kept her going, stopped her soul from crumbling away. She was spiralling away from him, lost, hurting so much and there was nothing he could do. Perhaps he could have talked to her, once upon a time. Back before Anders, before Dee, before New Caprica, before everything had become so wonderful and complicated and delicious and wrong. Back when the Twelve Colonies were barely gone, when Boomer was still flying Raptors and thinking she and the Chief had everyone fooled, when he was a captain and she was a lieutenant who loved to wind up the XO. There had been one moment when she had been completely his, but she had been slipping further and further and further. Gone. She was no longer Kara, but she was Starbuck, an empty shell. And he loved her so much.
He continued to send vipers out and keep her at home. She drank, but this wasn’t Starbuck drinking, this was the way that Tigh drank after New Caprica; she drank to cut off her thoughts. He overheard her talking to Helo once, talking about “that fraking mandala” and not being able to sleep. Lee hated Helo for talking to Kara, while he only got Starbuck. But how could she be Starbuck if she couldn’t fly? He found himself constantly watching her for a sign that there was something left, some reason to give her back her wings. She took to wandering along the corridors, seeking something he couldn’t fathom. He followed from a distance, ready to catch her if she fell.
Then the trial of Gaius Baltar started and Lee was assigned to assist. He worked on the case by day and haunted the halls by night, and Dee grew sadder and angrier until finally he moved out. He could watch Starbuck better from the same quarters. He saw how she wasn’t sleeping, how she turned away from the other pilots, how she walked with no purpose.
Then, one night he awoke with a jump and found her gone. A feeling of dread swelled up within him and he slipped on his boots. Nowhere. He went to the mess, to the memorial corridor, even to the hanger deck. There he found two deck hands yawning over the fuel lines on a Raptor while a third was barely visible underneath a Viper’s wing. They nodded at him, and he looked around. Too many gaps. They kept losing birds and only long shifts by the Chief and his crew kept the remaining ones in the air. One of them, Specialist…Neely?, called out as he was turning to leave
“If you are looking for Captain Thrace, Major, you missed her by about five minutes.” Lee stopped.
“Missed her?” Figurski spoke up
“She wanted to get a feel of her bird again now she’s back on flight status.” Lee opened his mouth and then shut it again. Should he take a Viper and follow? His flight suit was back in his quarters, and…no, next stop was CIC.
Gaeta was pulling the late shift and puzzling over something on Dradis with a young Lieutenant. No Dee. Lee was relieved. When Gaeta caught site of him, he jumped to his feet. “Major Adama, we have an unauthorised viper flight, do you...” Lee was at his side in two strides. It could only be one person. He grabbed the intercom
“Viper 319, report”
Just a crackle of static. He tried twice more, by which time the Admiral, with an unerring instinct for problems on deck, appeared. “Starbuck, this is Galactica Actual. Do you read me?” No reply. Gaeta looked across.
“Admiral, launch alert vipers to intercept?” Admiral Adama shook his head.
“Lee?” The Major nodded.
“I’ll go after her, bring her home.”
The panic was rising in him. A few months earlier he would have dismissed it as Starbuck frakking around. Now…now he didn’t want to think about it, just wanted her home, just wanted her back.
Flight suit, launch tubes, open space, frantically searching, following directions from the CIC, calling her on the comm., and all nothing. Then, finally, a faint voice:
“I’m sorry, Lee.”
He recognised the tone. He knew the feeling behind it. “Starbuck, do you copy? Kara? Please, Kara…” But he knew she had given up, she didn’t want to be found.
He searched, and the alert vipers searched, and CIC plotted directions, but no trace of Captain Kara Thrace was found. Lee kept seeing her in the corridors, in the court room, in the crowds of pilots, in the empty bunk. He couldn’t believe that she was gone. He didn’t believe that she was gone. She was Starbuck, and she always came back. But he had heard her voice, heard the finality of the unspoken goodbye, heard the echo of his own voice as he drifted in a torn flight suit.
Gone.
And it was all his fault.