Fic: Descant (chapter 7)
Title: Descant (Chapter 7)
Rating: R
Characters: Kara/Leoben, Lee, Helo, Caprica, Boomer, & more
Word Count (this chapter): 2,417
WARNINGS: Non-canon character death. Canon-level violence and themes.
A/N: 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 canon dollhouse, I hope you'll try this out.
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Kara holds Hera close as they walk through the camp. Around her life is settling down again; the arrival of Galactica seems to have brought hope back. People wave to her and smile at the baby; two little boys chase a dog across her path, screaming and laughing. Kara takes a deep breath for the first time since she can remember.
There don’t seem to be Cylons mixed in with the crowd, and it makes her wary, but she doesn’t let it darken her mood as she heads toward the meeting tent where she left Roslin, Adama and the Cylon leader Natalie earlier. That’s where Sharon should be.
In the alley between the meeting tent and the make-shift hospital, Kara glimpses two dark heads bent together. She steps closer and shakes her head at the oddness of seeing Boomer and Sharon like this, one woman’s arm around the other’s shoulders.
Both of them look up. Their cheeks are damp.
“What’s wrong?” Kara asks quickly, squeezing Hera tightly enough that the child wakes up in her arms.
Sharon straightens her uniform, blinks her tears away. “Boomer was telling me about Tyrol.”
Kara looks away. “Yeah. We lost a lot of good people.”
“I know.” Sharon stands then, reaches out eagerly to stroke Hera’s hair. Kara gladly releases the child, watching as her mother hugs her close.
Boomer rises too, hesitantly, frowning as she looks at Kara. Then she grins. “You’re covered in paint, Kara,” she says slyly.
Sharon looks up, peers at the white smudges left behind on Kara’s throat and arms. “What the hell have you been doing?”
At this Boomer actually laughs, and it’s such a wonderful sound that Kara hardly glares at all when she answers Sharon: “Leoben.”
Sharon blinks at Kara in surprise. “Really?”
Kara sighs, thinking of their last conversation. “Yeah, but...”
“But?” Boomer prompts.
Kara scowls. “He wants me to be something I’m not.”
Sharon cocks her head, looking down at her daughter. “Well,” she says slowly. “He was made to see what the rest of us can’t.”
“Made.” Kara shakes her head at the strangeness.
“And he’s always seen you.”
Kara looks between them, unsure which of the women before her has spoken. The idea that they’ve been created like this is suddenly unsettling. Before she can speak, shouts ring out behind her and Kara whirls.
“Frakking cylon!” someone yells. With a glance at Boomer, Kara heads for the voices.
*
He’s been walking slowly through the camp, feeling the dull throb of anger and fear all around him as he passes. It begins to beat faster just ahead, spiking suddenly as shouting erupts, women’s voices and men’s and his sister’s. Leoben breaks into a run.
He reaches the scene, a mass of tangling people in a square just big enough for a brawl, and takes it in in a glance: a Six - Faith, she calls herself; they’ve all started naming themselves since Caprica - is shouting back and forth with a red-haired woman, while the crowd of humans around them taunts and jeers.
Across the square he sees Caprica emerging, her eyes anxiously meeting his.
“I watched her shoot half my team back on Caprica!” the red-haired woman is shouting. “Her and a hundred more just like her!”
“You killed me!” Faith is screaming back. “Who are you to talk of mercy?!”
Leoben shoves his way through to them, all elbows and knees until the humans recognize him and fall back. He steps between the two women, facing Faith, his hands raised in peace. “Don’t do this, sister,” he murmurs. “This will be a fight to the death and death now will be the end of everything.”
She blinks at him, tears trembling in her eyes, and he wonders what the human woman did to her. But then Caprica has an arm around her, is guiding her away. Beyond them, Kara is in the crowd, her eyes lingering on him.
Leoben turns back to the others.
“Get the frak off our planet!” someone shouts, and the rest chime in.
He feels the rush of their rage, their hatred, and then as if in response a shock wave shakes them all as a ship slams into the atmosphere. Leoben looks up, staring in awe as raiders and Vipers whirl through the sky, chasing each other in and out of the clouds. Raiders chasing raiders.
He looks back toward Kara. She’s staring upward, rapt, torn between longing and fear. Then she turns, takes off toward the command tent.
*
Kara pushes her way through the crowd of people in the meeting tent and clambers onto the low stage. “What the hell is going on?” she demands as she reaches Roslin.
The older woman turns to her, eyes alarmed. “Bill went back to the Galactica. The Cylons--” she glances warily toward Natalie.
“Cavil’s forces jumped in with five baseships,” Natalie continues quickly. “They mean to wipe us out. We’re holding them off for now with baseships of our own.”
“And the Galactica and the Pegasus,” Laura adds.
Kara nods, glances upward at the canvas roof as another concussion booms through the atmosphere.
People are flooding into the tent as the fighting above continues, shouting for information and passing theories back and forth. A blond Cylon, one Kara recognizes from the altercation in the street, approaches, the mass of people swirling away from her. “Natalie,” she says urgently, looking nervously at Kara and Laura. “We need to leave. Right now, before more of our sisters die.”
Kara starts to shake her head. “There was a truce! We all agreed--”
“Faith’s right,” Natalie interrupts. “We can’t resurrect. Already there’s been violence breaking out in the camp. If our people aren’t safe here--”
“We’re on the same side!” Kara shouts.
“No we’re not!” erupts a voice from the crowd.
She looks out across them as more colonists take up the cry.
“Get rid of the Cylons!”
“They’re still the enemy!”
Kara shakes her head in frustration. “If we don’t make peace with them, we’re all dead!” The grumbles continue, volume mounting.
“Starbuck.” At the edge of the platform, Boomer’s holding out her hand. Kara pulls her up.
The shouting increases as Boomer steps onstage. Kara flinches when she sees Cally snarl something, holding Nicky close. “Hey!” she shouts. “Quiet!” She looks at Boomer, who nods. Kara steps back.
Boomer stares out at the crowd for a long moment, waiting for them to fall silent, before she finally speaks. “I’m a Cylon,” she begins. “But for two years I believed I was a human. I lived with you, flew with you, shared a head with you. I remember exactly what it was like to be human--but I’m a Cylon. And I’ve been confused for a long time, but the truth is...” She pauses, looking down at their faces, finding Sharon’s. “The truth is there’s hardly any difference at all. You’ve done horrible, unforgivable things to us and we’ve done horrible, unforgivable things to you. But we all need each other and our children to survive, because the Gods aren’t going to step in and save us. The universe doesn’t just forgive you and let you come back from extinction because you’re better than your enemy. If we kill each other, we’re gone.”
She surveys the crowd, looking from Cally to Faith to Jammer to Helo. No one’s shouting now. “Those Cylons who have chosen to trust you over their own people, who know that what we did before was wrong--they’re dying for us all right now. They have no reason to trust that we’ll show them peace when they land except that they’re offering it in return.”
Her gaze finds Lee in the back of the tent. “On the day that Caprica fell, the Admiral gave a speech. He said that during the first war, humanity never asked why it deserved to survive. Well, you don’t deserve it. Neither do we. But we all want to survive anyway. We want more than that. We want to live, and be happy, and raise our children in peace. Hera was the first. There will be more. And if we can build that together, maybe we will deserve to survive.”
Kara’s hand slips into hers, squeezes tight. Boomer glances over gratefully, then back out at the crowd.
“So say we all.” Lee’s voice carries in the silence. The room shifts, looking to him.
“So say we all,” Helo repeats, his arm around his wife and daughter.
Slowly the words build, wrapping around the tent, spoken by humans and Cylons together. A few stay silent, but no one interrupts the chant.
Kara looks out, finds Leoben easily. He’s smiling up at her. She smiles back.
*
The battle above ends in a matter of minutes, the allied Colonial and Cylon forces destroying or chasing away Cavil’s ships. Kara stays quiet in the meetings that ensue, listening while Lee insists on settlement on New Caprica with fortified defenses and Roslin and Helo argue the need to find Earth before Cavil does. In the end there’s a compromise: the Pegasus will stay with the settlement and the Galactica will continue onward. The Cylons too, will divide, and Boomer goes to tell them they have a real choice to make for the first time.
It’s only when the rest has been decided and Adama turns to her, resting a hand on her shoulder, that Kara speaks. “I’m coming with you.”
Bill smiles, squeezes her arm, but it’s Lee who Kara’s watching. She sees the protest in his eyes before his face hardens. When he nods to the rest of the group and heads out of the tent, Kara follows him.
“Hey,” she says softly, her breath a cloud in the fall air.
Lee turns back toward her. Night has fallen while they deliberated, and his face is lit only by the scattered torches and lanterns set out along the streets.
She steps closer and he holds his ground.
Lee opens his mouth, then closes it, clenching his jaw. Eventually he speaks. “You don’t have to go, Kara. If you want to stay--”
She shakes her head. “I need to go, Lee. I don’t have an explanation for why, but I think maybe I’m supposed to.” Just saying it scares her, but she owes him the truth.
He nods, resigned and tired, and starts to leave.
“Lee,” she says, a hint of pleading in her voice. “I’m sorry,” she whispers.
He shakes his head, but she sees the hurt in his eyes. He stares at her for a long moment before speaking. “It was the best night of my life, Kara.” Lee’s voice wavers, and suddenly he’s not hiding behind indifference anymore, he’s just looking at her like she broke his heart.
Kara moves before she’s even thought it through, wraps her arms around him, holds him tightly. Her throat is thick with all the things she’s never said to him, has no idea how to say to him. Isn’t sure she’ll get another chance to say. “I’m sorry I frakked it up,” she says into his shoulder.
Lee hugs her back, and they fit into place. “Everybody’s got a skill.”
She laughs but she’s crying, and he’s holding her too, and the worlds are finally righted. They stand together a long time.
Eventually Lee presses his lips to Kara’s forehead, then takes a step back, holding onto her hand. “Good luck on your journey, Kara Thrace.”
“Yeah.” She smiles through damp eyes, wincing as she tries to smile. “You too, Lee Adama.”
They hold on for a moment before letting go, heading off in opposite directions into the night.
*
His sisters are sitting on the steps of a house, steps freshly painted a light blue to match the sky. Leoben settles beside them, shoulder to shoulder with Boomer. “I was proud of you today,” he says softly.
Boomer leans against him for a moment. “I meant it,” she says. “I loved Galen. The way you two love Kara and Gaius. And if we can feel that, if it’s real...then we’re the same. Aren’t we?”
Caprica looks at Leoben over the top of Boomer’s head, shares a solemn smile with him. “It’ll be good to find Earth,” she says softly. “To start over.”
Boomer stiffens then, shifts up a step so she can look down at both of them. “I don’t think we can.”
Leoben frowns. “It’s out there, Boomer. Kara--”
She’s shaking her head. “We don’t get a fresh start. We just get to take what we have and keep going.” She takes a deep breath. “So I’m staying here.”
Caprica reaches out, clutches at her hand, “Boomer!”
Boomer squeezes back. “It’ll be alright.” She grins. “Let me know when you find Earth.”
*
It takes the better part of a week for the humans to sort out who will go and who will stay, for the Cylons to gather up their remaining baseships and organize them to guard New Caprica while Natalie’s joins Galactica on the search for Earth. They reload and refuel and everyone begins to say goodbye.
Kara teases Boomer when she hears the rook has been elected President, and grins at Lee as he stands beside her, the Admiral of the New Caprica fleet. She says her farewells to Cally and Barolay and most of the remaining resistance fighters, and then there’s only one thing left to do.
*
Leoben waits where he’s waited before. It’s a place he always lives, here in the dust, waiting for Kara to come for him. In the distance, he can see the home they shared for the span of an hour. It’s hard for him to sit still this time; his thoughts churn as he remembers what passed between them. Kara laughing in his arms, arching into his kisses. For the first time he knows impatience. Time is running out like sand through his fingers.
The last Raptors are preparing to leave when she finally arrives. Kara stands before him, studying the ground as she folds her arms across her chest. “Are you coming?” she asks sullenly.
He hears the tremor in her voice, the fear that he’ll tell her to go on alone. His chest tightens as he hears something else: she’s missed him, too. Leoben reaches out and rests a hand on her folded arms. “I’ll always be with you, Kara.”
Her eyes meet his sharply. She nods once, accepting the promise, then pulls away. “I’m not going because of you,” Kara reminds him as she turns, heading for the Raptor.
Leoben smiles and walks alongside her.
End Part One
Chapter 8
Rating: R
Characters: Kara/Leoben, Lee, Helo, Caprica, Boomer, & more
Word Count (this chapter): 2,417
WARNINGS: Non-canon character death. Canon-level violence and themes.
A/N: 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 canon dollhouse, I hope you'll try this out.
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Kara holds Hera close as they walk through the camp. Around her life is settling down again; the arrival of Galactica seems to have brought hope back. People wave to her and smile at the baby; two little boys chase a dog across her path, screaming and laughing. Kara takes a deep breath for the first time since she can remember.
There don’t seem to be Cylons mixed in with the crowd, and it makes her wary, but she doesn’t let it darken her mood as she heads toward the meeting tent where she left Roslin, Adama and the Cylon leader Natalie earlier. That’s where Sharon should be.
In the alley between the meeting tent and the make-shift hospital, Kara glimpses two dark heads bent together. She steps closer and shakes her head at the oddness of seeing Boomer and Sharon like this, one woman’s arm around the other’s shoulders.
Both of them look up. Their cheeks are damp.
“What’s wrong?” Kara asks quickly, squeezing Hera tightly enough that the child wakes up in her arms.
Sharon straightens her uniform, blinks her tears away. “Boomer was telling me about Tyrol.”
Kara looks away. “Yeah. We lost a lot of good people.”
“I know.” Sharon stands then, reaches out eagerly to stroke Hera’s hair. Kara gladly releases the child, watching as her mother hugs her close.
Boomer rises too, hesitantly, frowning as she looks at Kara. Then she grins. “You’re covered in paint, Kara,” she says slyly.
Sharon looks up, peers at the white smudges left behind on Kara’s throat and arms. “What the hell have you been doing?”
At this Boomer actually laughs, and it’s such a wonderful sound that Kara hardly glares at all when she answers Sharon: “Leoben.”
Sharon blinks at Kara in surprise. “Really?”
Kara sighs, thinking of their last conversation. “Yeah, but...”
“But?” Boomer prompts.
Kara scowls. “He wants me to be something I’m not.”
Sharon cocks her head, looking down at her daughter. “Well,” she says slowly. “He was made to see what the rest of us can’t.”
“Made.” Kara shakes her head at the strangeness.
“And he’s always seen you.”
Kara looks between them, unsure which of the women before her has spoken. The idea that they’ve been created like this is suddenly unsettling. Before she can speak, shouts ring out behind her and Kara whirls.
“Frakking cylon!” someone yells. With a glance at Boomer, Kara heads for the voices.
*
He’s been walking slowly through the camp, feeling the dull throb of anger and fear all around him as he passes. It begins to beat faster just ahead, spiking suddenly as shouting erupts, women’s voices and men’s and his sister’s. Leoben breaks into a run.
He reaches the scene, a mass of tangling people in a square just big enough for a brawl, and takes it in in a glance: a Six - Faith, she calls herself; they’ve all started naming themselves since Caprica - is shouting back and forth with a red-haired woman, while the crowd of humans around them taunts and jeers.
Across the square he sees Caprica emerging, her eyes anxiously meeting his.
“I watched her shoot half my team back on Caprica!” the red-haired woman is shouting. “Her and a hundred more just like her!”
“You killed me!” Faith is screaming back. “Who are you to talk of mercy?!”
Leoben shoves his way through to them, all elbows and knees until the humans recognize him and fall back. He steps between the two women, facing Faith, his hands raised in peace. “Don’t do this, sister,” he murmurs. “This will be a fight to the death and death now will be the end of everything.”
She blinks at him, tears trembling in her eyes, and he wonders what the human woman did to her. But then Caprica has an arm around her, is guiding her away. Beyond them, Kara is in the crowd, her eyes lingering on him.
Leoben turns back to the others.
“Get the frak off our planet!” someone shouts, and the rest chime in.
He feels the rush of their rage, their hatred, and then as if in response a shock wave shakes them all as a ship slams into the atmosphere. Leoben looks up, staring in awe as raiders and Vipers whirl through the sky, chasing each other in and out of the clouds. Raiders chasing raiders.
He looks back toward Kara. She’s staring upward, rapt, torn between longing and fear. Then she turns, takes off toward the command tent.
*
Kara pushes her way through the crowd of people in the meeting tent and clambers onto the low stage. “What the hell is going on?” she demands as she reaches Roslin.
The older woman turns to her, eyes alarmed. “Bill went back to the Galactica. The Cylons--” she glances warily toward Natalie.
“Cavil’s forces jumped in with five baseships,” Natalie continues quickly. “They mean to wipe us out. We’re holding them off for now with baseships of our own.”
“And the Galactica and the Pegasus,” Laura adds.
Kara nods, glances upward at the canvas roof as another concussion booms through the atmosphere.
People are flooding into the tent as the fighting above continues, shouting for information and passing theories back and forth. A blond Cylon, one Kara recognizes from the altercation in the street, approaches, the mass of people swirling away from her. “Natalie,” she says urgently, looking nervously at Kara and Laura. “We need to leave. Right now, before more of our sisters die.”
Kara starts to shake her head. “There was a truce! We all agreed--”
“Faith’s right,” Natalie interrupts. “We can’t resurrect. Already there’s been violence breaking out in the camp. If our people aren’t safe here--”
“We’re on the same side!” Kara shouts.
“No we’re not!” erupts a voice from the crowd.
She looks out across them as more colonists take up the cry.
“Get rid of the Cylons!”
“They’re still the enemy!”
Kara shakes her head in frustration. “If we don’t make peace with them, we’re all dead!” The grumbles continue, volume mounting.
“Starbuck.” At the edge of the platform, Boomer’s holding out her hand. Kara pulls her up.
The shouting increases as Boomer steps onstage. Kara flinches when she sees Cally snarl something, holding Nicky close. “Hey!” she shouts. “Quiet!” She looks at Boomer, who nods. Kara steps back.
Boomer stares out at the crowd for a long moment, waiting for them to fall silent, before she finally speaks. “I’m a Cylon,” she begins. “But for two years I believed I was a human. I lived with you, flew with you, shared a head with you. I remember exactly what it was like to be human--but I’m a Cylon. And I’ve been confused for a long time, but the truth is...” She pauses, looking down at their faces, finding Sharon’s. “The truth is there’s hardly any difference at all. You’ve done horrible, unforgivable things to us and we’ve done horrible, unforgivable things to you. But we all need each other and our children to survive, because the Gods aren’t going to step in and save us. The universe doesn’t just forgive you and let you come back from extinction because you’re better than your enemy. If we kill each other, we’re gone.”
She surveys the crowd, looking from Cally to Faith to Jammer to Helo. No one’s shouting now. “Those Cylons who have chosen to trust you over their own people, who know that what we did before was wrong--they’re dying for us all right now. They have no reason to trust that we’ll show them peace when they land except that they’re offering it in return.”
Her gaze finds Lee in the back of the tent. “On the day that Caprica fell, the Admiral gave a speech. He said that during the first war, humanity never asked why it deserved to survive. Well, you don’t deserve it. Neither do we. But we all want to survive anyway. We want more than that. We want to live, and be happy, and raise our children in peace. Hera was the first. There will be more. And if we can build that together, maybe we will deserve to survive.”
Kara’s hand slips into hers, squeezes tight. Boomer glances over gratefully, then back out at the crowd.
“So say we all.” Lee’s voice carries in the silence. The room shifts, looking to him.
“So say we all,” Helo repeats, his arm around his wife and daughter.
Slowly the words build, wrapping around the tent, spoken by humans and Cylons together. A few stay silent, but no one interrupts the chant.
Kara looks out, finds Leoben easily. He’s smiling up at her. She smiles back.
*
The battle above ends in a matter of minutes, the allied Colonial and Cylon forces destroying or chasing away Cavil’s ships. Kara stays quiet in the meetings that ensue, listening while Lee insists on settlement on New Caprica with fortified defenses and Roslin and Helo argue the need to find Earth before Cavil does. In the end there’s a compromise: the Pegasus will stay with the settlement and the Galactica will continue onward. The Cylons too, will divide, and Boomer goes to tell them they have a real choice to make for the first time.
It’s only when the rest has been decided and Adama turns to her, resting a hand on her shoulder, that Kara speaks. “I’m coming with you.”
Bill smiles, squeezes her arm, but it’s Lee who Kara’s watching. She sees the protest in his eyes before his face hardens. When he nods to the rest of the group and heads out of the tent, Kara follows him.
“Hey,” she says softly, her breath a cloud in the fall air.
Lee turns back toward her. Night has fallen while they deliberated, and his face is lit only by the scattered torches and lanterns set out along the streets.
She steps closer and he holds his ground.
Lee opens his mouth, then closes it, clenching his jaw. Eventually he speaks. “You don’t have to go, Kara. If you want to stay--”
She shakes her head. “I need to go, Lee. I don’t have an explanation for why, but I think maybe I’m supposed to.” Just saying it scares her, but she owes him the truth.
He nods, resigned and tired, and starts to leave.
“Lee,” she says, a hint of pleading in her voice. “I’m sorry,” she whispers.
He shakes his head, but she sees the hurt in his eyes. He stares at her for a long moment before speaking. “It was the best night of my life, Kara.” Lee’s voice wavers, and suddenly he’s not hiding behind indifference anymore, he’s just looking at her like she broke his heart.
Kara moves before she’s even thought it through, wraps her arms around him, holds him tightly. Her throat is thick with all the things she’s never said to him, has no idea how to say to him. Isn’t sure she’ll get another chance to say. “I’m sorry I frakked it up,” she says into his shoulder.
Lee hugs her back, and they fit into place. “Everybody’s got a skill.”
She laughs but she’s crying, and he’s holding her too, and the worlds are finally righted. They stand together a long time.
Eventually Lee presses his lips to Kara’s forehead, then takes a step back, holding onto her hand. “Good luck on your journey, Kara Thrace.”
“Yeah.” She smiles through damp eyes, wincing as she tries to smile. “You too, Lee Adama.”
They hold on for a moment before letting go, heading off in opposite directions into the night.
*
His sisters are sitting on the steps of a house, steps freshly painted a light blue to match the sky. Leoben settles beside them, shoulder to shoulder with Boomer. “I was proud of you today,” he says softly.
Boomer leans against him for a moment. “I meant it,” she says. “I loved Galen. The way you two love Kara and Gaius. And if we can feel that, if it’s real...then we’re the same. Aren’t we?”
Caprica looks at Leoben over the top of Boomer’s head, shares a solemn smile with him. “It’ll be good to find Earth,” she says softly. “To start over.”
Boomer stiffens then, shifts up a step so she can look down at both of them. “I don’t think we can.”
Leoben frowns. “It’s out there, Boomer. Kara--”
She’s shaking her head. “We don’t get a fresh start. We just get to take what we have and keep going.” She takes a deep breath. “So I’m staying here.”
Caprica reaches out, clutches at her hand, “Boomer!”
Boomer squeezes back. “It’ll be alright.” She grins. “Let me know when you find Earth.”
*
It takes the better part of a week for the humans to sort out who will go and who will stay, for the Cylons to gather up their remaining baseships and organize them to guard New Caprica while Natalie’s joins Galactica on the search for Earth. They reload and refuel and everyone begins to say goodbye.
Kara teases Boomer when she hears the rook has been elected President, and grins at Lee as he stands beside her, the Admiral of the New Caprica fleet. She says her farewells to Cally and Barolay and most of the remaining resistance fighters, and then there’s only one thing left to do.
*
Leoben waits where he’s waited before. It’s a place he always lives, here in the dust, waiting for Kara to come for him. In the distance, he can see the home they shared for the span of an hour. It’s hard for him to sit still this time; his thoughts churn as he remembers what passed between them. Kara laughing in his arms, arching into his kisses. For the first time he knows impatience. Time is running out like sand through his fingers.
The last Raptors are preparing to leave when she finally arrives. Kara stands before him, studying the ground as she folds her arms across her chest. “Are you coming?” she asks sullenly.
He hears the tremor in her voice, the fear that he’ll tell her to go on alone. His chest tightens as he hears something else: she’s missed him, too. Leoben reaches out and rests a hand on her folded arms. “I’ll always be with you, Kara.”
Her eyes meet his sharply. She nods once, accepting the promise, then pulls away. “I’m not going because of you,” Kara reminds him as she turns, heading for the Raptor.
Leoben smiles and walks alongside her.
End Part One
Chapter 8