Fic: Descant
Title: Descant
Rating: PG-13 (for now)
Characters (this chapter): Kara/Sam, Kara/Leoben, Caprica, Boomer, & more
Word Count (this chapter): 1,880
Warnings: Character death, canon and non-canon, over the course of the story. Canon-level violence and themes.
A/N: I've been working on this for months and it's finally ready for posting! This is an AU that begins as the Cylons reach New Caprica and before Leoben imprisons Kara, so for those of you whose aversion to Kara/Leoben begins with the dollhouse, I hope you'll try this out.
A/N 2: Many, many thanks to deborah_judge for all her feedback and encouragement!
Of all that earth has been or yet may be, all that vain men imagine or believe, or hope can paint or suffering may achieve, we descanted. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley
Part One
Chapter One
Kara scans the marketplace surreptitiously, keeping her head down the way everyone has in the two days since the Cylons arrived. The early fall air is still warm but they’re all wearing layers, identities hidden away.
He’s here somewhere, she can feel it.
Sam’s voice shook when he told her about Leoben; he wanted her to hide out, lay low. The President’s eyes widened in fear as she remembered what they did to him.
Kara’s not afraid. Instead she’s tingling with curiosity, with an eagerness she can’t explain to see him again, to see if his soul survived.
From across the mass of people, Leoben watches Kara, sees her wandering path move her closer and closer to him. He tries to be patient, tries to remember what Boomer said back on the basestar.
She’d smiled, staring down at the planet as they approached, murmured, “Tyrol’s down there.”
“And Gaius.” Caprica smiled, too.
“And Kara.”
Caprica nodded absently, but Boomer turned to him in confusion. “Starbuck tortured you.”
Leoben gazed down at the planet. “She’ll love me, I’ve seen it.”
Boomer stared at him, wary. “She doesn’t know that.”
He tries to keep in mind now that the memories of Kara writhing with pleasure in his arms, crying out her love, are his alone. Even so, his pulse races as she draws nearer.
She comes to the edge of the bubble the crowd has left around him and stops. Their eyes meet, neither surprised.
For a long moment they are still. Then Kara starts to raise her hand, a gesture he’s played over a thousand times, and Leoben goes wild with joy. She stares at him in wonder.
“Kara!” Her husband is there then, glaring at him, pulling her away even as she elbows him off of her. They are almost immediately lost in the swirling crowd.
*
Kara follows Sam into the tent. “So?”
He glances back at the flap, then quickly lifts the rug and the panel it hides. “This is where the they dug the basement for Baltar’s house before he announced he’d stay on Colonial One. Foundation’s still good.” He waves and she descends the stairs, nods in appreciation as she takes in the large underground chamber.
“This’ll do.”
“Starbuck,” Tigh barks with a nod.
“Captain.”
Kara acknowledges Tigh and Tyrol, takes in Barolay and Duck and Nora with a glance, then frowns, looks back and forth between them in agitation. “The president’s late?”
Duck shakes his head. “I saw them take her.”
“Frak,” Kara hisses.
Behind her Sam starts coughing. She whirls, reaching out to him as he clutches his chest, unable to stop for a full minute. When Kara turns back around the others are watching her. For a moment she meets Tigh’s eyes, but he just gives a slight nod and waits. “Alright,” she says finally. “What do we know?”
They don’t know enough. They don’t know what the cylons really want, or what’s happening to Roslin, or whether Galactica has survived. But Kara’s not taking back her words: she’ll fight until she can’t.
*
She lies awake that night, listening to Sam’s hacking in the darkness. Their bed trembles with the force of it. Eventually she wraps an arm around him from behind, presses her cheek against his back. Kara imagines she can hear the fluid in there. If only she’d gotten him help. For a moment Lee’s voice springs to mind, his tight, hollow tone as he picked up the phone and said her name. She hopes he’s alive out there, somewhere.
Kara distracts herself with thoughts of the resistance. She was proud of Sam today, of the way he sat the group down and lectured on guerrilla tactics against the cylons for a solid hour. It’s a shame more military didn’t make it down to the planet, but she’s got a good group and more will join once they get organized. Sam was right though, they’re not ready yet. Right now they need to be deft and quiet and strategic. She curls closer to his heat.
Her hand rubs Sam’s chest through a cough. She went back to Cottle after the meeting; the antibiotics stores are completely gone. Kara holds onto him tighter as he gasps for breath, suddenly terribly afraid that all the horror she missed with her mother is coming soon, and for Sam.
There’s not even any more fear left to feel when she realizes, all in a rush, what it is she’ll have to do.
*
He waits for her, right there. Night came, and his body was cold, shivered in the starlight. The morning warmed him. Leoben didn’t notice. He has seen it before: Kara Thrace, emerging from the stream of people, walking up to him, ready for him to lead her to her destiny. Even when nothing else is clear in his visions, he knows one thing with the certainty of prophecy: Kara will bring them all home.
When it finally happens it takes him a moment to realize; the air is gritty, the daylight is harsh, a thousand myriad details impinge on the certainty he’s always felt in this moment.
“Can we talk?” Kara asks, her eyes measuring him.
It hits him forcefully, and Leoben grins. “Yes,” he says, “yes.” He turns, knows she is following him as he heads away from the market.
As they near the concrete bunkers the Centurions have been busily assembling, Kara stops.
Leoben faces her.
“I need something,” Kara says quickly. “Antibiotics. For someone with pneumonia.”
He nods, frowns for a moment as reality shakes loose from his visions and he must live it alone. “I can get that.”
“Good.”
She’s waiting, still, and his heart begins to beat harder as he realizes for what: Kara has come here expecting to give him something, expecting to bargain. “Dinner,” he spits out. “Come have dinner with me. I’ll give you the drugs.”
Kara considers him. “Fine,” she says. “But it has to be tonight. He needs them soon.”
Leoben smiles after her as she walks away.
*
She doesn’t tell anyone where she’s going. They wouldn’t understand.
Pain for pain is all she’s ever known. She hid bugs; her mother broke her fingers. She punched Lee; he hit right back. She tells Sam she doesn’t have to explain herself to him and he tells her she could try being his wife. Kara threw everything she had at Leoben, every ounce of pain. He could have killed her and instead he gave her a prophecy. If it’s coming for her tonight, she deserves it. And if it doesn’t she might just save Sam’s life.
Leoben leads her into the bunker, into a windowless cell incongruously filled with a dining table and chairs.
“This is...creepy,” Kara mutters as she takes a seat.
Leoben looks up, crestfallen. “I tried to make it nice.”
She shakes her head. “No windows? Feels more like a prison.”
He tilts his head. “The Galactica didn’t have many windows.” When Kara only shrugs, he lifts a cover off of a dish. “Steak?”
Kara blinks at it in surprise, then at him. “Yes!”
He nods. “First we pray.” He holds out his hands across the table.
She studies him carefully, then lays her palms upon his. Leoben’s fingers close around hers, warm and firm. Kara closes her eyes as he prays and feels the faint beat of his pulse in his wrist.
His voice is measured and deep. “Heavenly father, we thank you for your many gifts, among them this food and the love which binds the universe.” Leoben gently releases her.
Kara’s eyes open. “Thank the Gods,” she murmurs, and reaches for her fork.
They eat in silence for a while, though Kara can feel Leoben watching her. Once her hunger has abated, she leans back in her chair. “Why did you come here? What is it that you want?”
He smiles fondly. “Interrogating me again, Kara?”
Her expression falters for a moment. “You have Caprica. You have Kobol. You have the whole rest of space! Why come here, why keep pursuing us?”
Leoben watches her, his eyes flickering for a chilling second toward the door, toward the lock. “The futures of our races are entwined, Kara. You are the right hand of humanity, and we the left. We need each other.”
“You’re not human,” she says pointedly.
He smiles faintly, sticks his fork into a chunk of potato and raises it to his lips, chewing slowly.
Kara shakes her head. “Well I don’t believe in destiny anyway.”
“Alright.” He nods, smiling slightly, clearly not accepting her words. Continues to eat his food.
When she’s finished, Kara rises and Leoben leads her back toward the open door. His hand clenches for a moment on the handle. He has had so many glimpses of their future, but none of this moment. Destiny has receded and God has left the choice to him. He could keep her here, if he wanted to. He wants to. But Boomer’s words ring in his ears: Kara doesn’t know yet that she loves him.
Kara looks sharply at him, waiting for the door to slam.
“This way,” he says softly, and walks through it.
Outside again, on the margin of untamed land between the cylon buildings and the settlement, Kara stops and waits for Leoben to turn to her.
“Thank you,” she says softly, knowing he could have closed the door, that part of him wanted to. Knowing that she would never have let him go free.
A smile spreads across his face, brightens his eyes. For the first time she sees his beauty. Kara leans up and presses a kiss to his cheek. This close she can smell him, a faint trace of sweat. It reminds her of when they met. Reminds her he’s a man. The kiss lasts a moment too long and then his head is turning, Leoben’s lips are covering her own.
Kara’s pulse hammers as the kiss goes on, as his arms wrap around her waist and her hands are suddenly clutching his shoulders. She pauses a second to breathe, rests her forehead against his chest. Leoben’s hand runs lightly up and down her back and Kara shivers, wanting him. He’s saving Sam’s life after all, and he’s let her go when he doesn’t have to. It’s a better excuse than some she’s used.
“God,” Leoben murmurs, stroking her hair, and it’s the strangeness of the word, the singular, that makes her pull back. Kara stares up at him a long moment, then steps away.
For a moment his eyes flash with frustrated desire, then it fades. “Here.” He holds up a vial of pills he’s pulled out of his pocket.
Kara’s hand closes over them. She frowns at the sudden implication that this has been a transaction. “I didn’t--” she starts, and then falls silent.
Leoben nods. “Someday you’ll hold me in your arms, Kara, and tell me you love me. I’ve seen it.”
She frowns, stepping back, blinking at him warily. “I could never love you.” Even to her ears it sounds half-hearted.
“You know better than that, Kara. You know my soul.” He waits, watching her.
Kara stares at him a moment longer, then turns and leaves, resisting the urge to run, resisting the urge turn back.
Chapter 2
Rating: PG-13 (for now)
Characters (this chapter): Kara/Sam, Kara/Leoben, Caprica, Boomer, & more
Word Count (this chapter): 1,880
Warnings: Character death, canon and non-canon, over the course of the story. Canon-level violence and themes.
A/N: I've been working on this for months and it's finally ready for posting! This is an AU that begins as the Cylons reach New Caprica and before Leoben imprisons Kara, so for those of you whose aversion to Kara/Leoben begins with the dollhouse, I hope you'll try this out.
A/N 2: Many, many thanks to deborah_judge for all her feedback and encouragement!
Of all that earth has been or yet may be, all that vain men imagine or believe, or hope can paint or suffering may achieve, we descanted. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley
Part One
Chapter One
Kara scans the marketplace surreptitiously, keeping her head down the way everyone has in the two days since the Cylons arrived. The early fall air is still warm but they’re all wearing layers, identities hidden away.
He’s here somewhere, she can feel it.
Sam’s voice shook when he told her about Leoben; he wanted her to hide out, lay low. The President’s eyes widened in fear as she remembered what they did to him.
Kara’s not afraid. Instead she’s tingling with curiosity, with an eagerness she can’t explain to see him again, to see if his soul survived.
From across the mass of people, Leoben watches Kara, sees her wandering path move her closer and closer to him. He tries to be patient, tries to remember what Boomer said back on the basestar.
She’d smiled, staring down at the planet as they approached, murmured, “Tyrol’s down there.”
“And Gaius.” Caprica smiled, too.
“And Kara.”
Caprica nodded absently, but Boomer turned to him in confusion. “Starbuck tortured you.”
Leoben gazed down at the planet. “She’ll love me, I’ve seen it.”
Boomer stared at him, wary. “She doesn’t know that.”
He tries to keep in mind now that the memories of Kara writhing with pleasure in his arms, crying out her love, are his alone. Even so, his pulse races as she draws nearer.
She comes to the edge of the bubble the crowd has left around him and stops. Their eyes meet, neither surprised.
For a long moment they are still. Then Kara starts to raise her hand, a gesture he’s played over a thousand times, and Leoben goes wild with joy. She stares at him in wonder.
“Kara!” Her husband is there then, glaring at him, pulling her away even as she elbows him off of her. They are almost immediately lost in the swirling crowd.
*
Kara follows Sam into the tent. “So?”
He glances back at the flap, then quickly lifts the rug and the panel it hides. “This is where the they dug the basement for Baltar’s house before he announced he’d stay on Colonial One. Foundation’s still good.” He waves and she descends the stairs, nods in appreciation as she takes in the large underground chamber.
“This’ll do.”
“Starbuck,” Tigh barks with a nod.
“Captain.”
Kara acknowledges Tigh and Tyrol, takes in Barolay and Duck and Nora with a glance, then frowns, looks back and forth between them in agitation. “The president’s late?”
Duck shakes his head. “I saw them take her.”
“Frak,” Kara hisses.
Behind her Sam starts coughing. She whirls, reaching out to him as he clutches his chest, unable to stop for a full minute. When Kara turns back around the others are watching her. For a moment she meets Tigh’s eyes, but he just gives a slight nod and waits. “Alright,” she says finally. “What do we know?”
They don’t know enough. They don’t know what the cylons really want, or what’s happening to Roslin, or whether Galactica has survived. But Kara’s not taking back her words: she’ll fight until she can’t.
*
She lies awake that night, listening to Sam’s hacking in the darkness. Their bed trembles with the force of it. Eventually she wraps an arm around him from behind, presses her cheek against his back. Kara imagines she can hear the fluid in there. If only she’d gotten him help. For a moment Lee’s voice springs to mind, his tight, hollow tone as he picked up the phone and said her name. She hopes he’s alive out there, somewhere.
Kara distracts herself with thoughts of the resistance. She was proud of Sam today, of the way he sat the group down and lectured on guerrilla tactics against the cylons for a solid hour. It’s a shame more military didn’t make it down to the planet, but she’s got a good group and more will join once they get organized. Sam was right though, they’re not ready yet. Right now they need to be deft and quiet and strategic. She curls closer to his heat.
Her hand rubs Sam’s chest through a cough. She went back to Cottle after the meeting; the antibiotics stores are completely gone. Kara holds onto him tighter as he gasps for breath, suddenly terribly afraid that all the horror she missed with her mother is coming soon, and for Sam.
There’s not even any more fear left to feel when she realizes, all in a rush, what it is she’ll have to do.
*
He waits for her, right there. Night came, and his body was cold, shivered in the starlight. The morning warmed him. Leoben didn’t notice. He has seen it before: Kara Thrace, emerging from the stream of people, walking up to him, ready for him to lead her to her destiny. Even when nothing else is clear in his visions, he knows one thing with the certainty of prophecy: Kara will bring them all home.
When it finally happens it takes him a moment to realize; the air is gritty, the daylight is harsh, a thousand myriad details impinge on the certainty he’s always felt in this moment.
“Can we talk?” Kara asks, her eyes measuring him.
It hits him forcefully, and Leoben grins. “Yes,” he says, “yes.” He turns, knows she is following him as he heads away from the market.
As they near the concrete bunkers the Centurions have been busily assembling, Kara stops.
Leoben faces her.
“I need something,” Kara says quickly. “Antibiotics. For someone with pneumonia.”
He nods, frowns for a moment as reality shakes loose from his visions and he must live it alone. “I can get that.”
“Good.”
She’s waiting, still, and his heart begins to beat harder as he realizes for what: Kara has come here expecting to give him something, expecting to bargain. “Dinner,” he spits out. “Come have dinner with me. I’ll give you the drugs.”
Kara considers him. “Fine,” she says. “But it has to be tonight. He needs them soon.”
Leoben smiles after her as she walks away.
*
She doesn’t tell anyone where she’s going. They wouldn’t understand.
Pain for pain is all she’s ever known. She hid bugs; her mother broke her fingers. She punched Lee; he hit right back. She tells Sam she doesn’t have to explain herself to him and he tells her she could try being his wife. Kara threw everything she had at Leoben, every ounce of pain. He could have killed her and instead he gave her a prophecy. If it’s coming for her tonight, she deserves it. And if it doesn’t she might just save Sam’s life.
Leoben leads her into the bunker, into a windowless cell incongruously filled with a dining table and chairs.
“This is...creepy,” Kara mutters as she takes a seat.
Leoben looks up, crestfallen. “I tried to make it nice.”
She shakes her head. “No windows? Feels more like a prison.”
He tilts his head. “The Galactica didn’t have many windows.” When Kara only shrugs, he lifts a cover off of a dish. “Steak?”
Kara blinks at it in surprise, then at him. “Yes!”
He nods. “First we pray.” He holds out his hands across the table.
She studies him carefully, then lays her palms upon his. Leoben’s fingers close around hers, warm and firm. Kara closes her eyes as he prays and feels the faint beat of his pulse in his wrist.
His voice is measured and deep. “Heavenly father, we thank you for your many gifts, among them this food and the love which binds the universe.” Leoben gently releases her.
Kara’s eyes open. “Thank the Gods,” she murmurs, and reaches for her fork.
They eat in silence for a while, though Kara can feel Leoben watching her. Once her hunger has abated, she leans back in her chair. “Why did you come here? What is it that you want?”
He smiles fondly. “Interrogating me again, Kara?”
Her expression falters for a moment. “You have Caprica. You have Kobol. You have the whole rest of space! Why come here, why keep pursuing us?”
Leoben watches her, his eyes flickering for a chilling second toward the door, toward the lock. “The futures of our races are entwined, Kara. You are the right hand of humanity, and we the left. We need each other.”
“You’re not human,” she says pointedly.
He smiles faintly, sticks his fork into a chunk of potato and raises it to his lips, chewing slowly.
Kara shakes her head. “Well I don’t believe in destiny anyway.”
“Alright.” He nods, smiling slightly, clearly not accepting her words. Continues to eat his food.
When she’s finished, Kara rises and Leoben leads her back toward the open door. His hand clenches for a moment on the handle. He has had so many glimpses of their future, but none of this moment. Destiny has receded and God has left the choice to him. He could keep her here, if he wanted to. He wants to. But Boomer’s words ring in his ears: Kara doesn’t know yet that she loves him.
Kara looks sharply at him, waiting for the door to slam.
“This way,” he says softly, and walks through it.
Outside again, on the margin of untamed land between the cylon buildings and the settlement, Kara stops and waits for Leoben to turn to her.
“Thank you,” she says softly, knowing he could have closed the door, that part of him wanted to. Knowing that she would never have let him go free.
A smile spreads across his face, brightens his eyes. For the first time she sees his beauty. Kara leans up and presses a kiss to his cheek. This close she can smell him, a faint trace of sweat. It reminds her of when they met. Reminds her he’s a man. The kiss lasts a moment too long and then his head is turning, Leoben’s lips are covering her own.
Kara’s pulse hammers as the kiss goes on, as his arms wrap around her waist and her hands are suddenly clutching his shoulders. She pauses a second to breathe, rests her forehead against his chest. Leoben’s hand runs lightly up and down her back and Kara shivers, wanting him. He’s saving Sam’s life after all, and he’s let her go when he doesn’t have to. It’s a better excuse than some she’s used.
“God,” Leoben murmurs, stroking her hair, and it’s the strangeness of the word, the singular, that makes her pull back. Kara stares up at him a long moment, then steps away.
For a moment his eyes flash with frustrated desire, then it fades. “Here.” He holds up a vial of pills he’s pulled out of his pocket.
Kara’s hand closes over them. She frowns at the sudden implication that this has been a transaction. “I didn’t--” she starts, and then falls silent.
Leoben nods. “Someday you’ll hold me in your arms, Kara, and tell me you love me. I’ve seen it.”
She frowns, stepping back, blinking at him warily. “I could never love you.” Even to her ears it sounds half-hearted.
“You know better than that, Kara. You know my soul.” He waits, watching her.
Kara stares at him a moment longer, then turns and leaves, resisting the urge to run, resisting the urge turn back.
Chapter 2