Under the Hard Deck
Title: Under the Hard Deck
Author: me
Words: ~1700
Pairing: Kara/Lee
Prompt: telling the whole truth from embolalia
Beta: sci_fi_shipper
A/N: Kara and Lee kind of discuss their relationship under the hard deck during Maelstrom. And Maybe tell each other the truth.
Her viper bumps through the clouds, and when Kara opens her eyes she’s surrounded by sun light. Sunlight like she hasn’t seen since Caprica. Caprica before the Fall. The Nuclear wasteland was dead gray. Even New Caprica didn’t have the same kind of light.
She smiles, looks around for Lee. He should see this. She can’t wait for him to see this. It’s amazing.
But he’s gone and the grin fades from her face. Her eyelids flutter closed. Her body goes slack, like it’s falling through the bright, white clouds.
Leoben sits on the other side of her mother’s death bed. Kara clearly wants to strangle both of them, but she’s caught by the stack of papers. Old school papers, art projects. Things she was once proud of. Things Socrata mocked and put down.
Kara blinks away tears. She remembers running away from her mother, the fight over her ranking at the Academy. She studied so hard, worked in ways Socrata Thrace would never understand to end up 16th. Kara’s back straightens, lock into place. Attention at the side of her mother’s bed. Nothing less for a Colonial Marine.
“You’re not my mother.”
“Yes, she is. Sure as you’re Kara Thrace, she is Socrata.” Leoben says.
“No,” Kara shakes her head, clasps her hands behind her back and resets her legs. At ease.
“I always wanted the best for you,” The woman in the bed says.
“No. No, you never… You only ever showed me pain. You’re not my mother. You never were,” Kara insists.
“I never said she was,” the cylon tells her.
“And you’re not Leoben.” The realization plays across her face.
“I never said I was.”
*** *** ***
“Kara, pull up!”
When she doesn’t, Lee gives chase, continuing to chant the warning even he descends through the clouds behind her. Kara, Starbuck, doesn’t falter, and soon they’re both below the hard deck. Stuck.
Kara’s words about destiny, the phantom raider, their talk under the wing of her bird before CAP. It all makes him worry. That’s why he follows. Its’ not until they’re circling, circling that Lee fully realizes how stuck they are. How thick the atmosphere is.
Vipers have been exclusively flown in space since the Mark III, which gives Starbuck’s Mark II a fair shot at getting back through this atmosphere, thicker than that to the Colonies. Lee quickly calculates his own chances in the lighter, finer Mark VII as NOT GOOD. He winces, flips back around to look for Kara, taking in the colors and pretending he can feel the air inside his helmet.
Kara’s bird lurches. Lee swears he can see her head slamming into the control panel. Before he can call to her again she’s laughing over the comms.
“Just let me go,” she mumbles.
He’s pretty sure she’s not laughing for him, but she’s not unconscious. She speeds away form him and the giggles fade. Lee slams into the next gear to keep up. It’s almost fun. If it didn’t feel a like a chase, like Apollo is running Starbuck down, trying to keep her from hurting herself again.
“You shouldn’t been here,” she says. More lucid this time.
“I couldn’t let you go,” Lee answers, slightly desperate and a little defeated.
“You should have…” she fades out. “We’re going to die here.”
“Maybe.”
“So tell me something.” It’s wistful like sitting with her under the wing of her viper again. Lee wishes he could reach out a touch her once more. If they’re really going to die… It’s awful to be separated like this.
“Anything.”
“Tell me one thing you lied about earlier. When you were trying to get me out here.”
“I lied before… About things with Dee… They’re not what everyone thinks. I tried. I really tried, but it’s…” Faced with reality, with the reality that even his best theories on how to get out from under the hard deck under in near tragedy, Lee knows he should unburden himself, tell Kara one more time. He hesitates, breathing hard into the radio. Then finally finishes. “You. It was you.”
“I would have… If you had…” She must be thinking the same thing, be seeing the same facts and figures on their chances of escaping because Kara confesses without prompting and then goes silent.
However, her uncharacteristic quiet, moves Lee to go on, “From the first moment… it was like I always knew you. Things I don’t believe I know when I look at you. The gods and Earth… It’s all real when I look at you.”
“Oh, gods,” she gasps in response. Lee blanches even in the privacy of his cockpit. Rejection, even now.
*** *** ***
The viper jolts again. She hears Lee’s voice in her ear, explaining how they’re going to get out from under the hard deck. A textbook explanation, but this is far from a textbook situation. The words to argue back get caught in her throat, lodged until she thinks she might choke.
In fact, Kara can’t breathe at all. She bangs her hands against the control panel, trying to shake the air loose. Nothing. Panic swells in her, pressing down through the top of her head and up through her bowels and stomach.
Everything goes back again. For a split second Kara Thrace is glad.
Her raptor lands, breaking through the haze of Caprica, but it’s not Sam waiting for at the school. Zak steps out from the rest of the resistance fighters. His smile so bright it glows in the afternoon sun. He looks good, perfect. Perfect and happy like the last afternoon she saw him.
Kara shudders and moves back, but he’s running towards her, scooping her up and twirling her around. No one has ever been so excited to see Kara Thrace. She laughs, cackles. Tears come rolling down her cheeks.
“It’s good to see you,” she whispers because if she speaks out loud she’ll start to cry.
“Good to see you too. Almost gave up on you coming.”
“I promised. I promised you’d get your wings.” The words sound wrong to her ears before right coming out of her mouth. She cocks her head trying to make sense of the gap between.
Zak doesn’t miss a beat though. He grins and pulls her tighter before setting her gently on the ground. “That you did. And you always come through, don’t you?”
“I try,” Kara grins.
“So keep your promise to him,” Zak says.
“To… to… to who?” She’s afraid to hear the answer but tries to keep smiling. She always wants to keep smiling for Zak.
“He needs you Kara. Lee needs you to make it back with him. Don’t lose him this time.”
Zak gives a little shove and Kara stumbles back to the raptor, only it’s her viper. She blinks, readjusts. Maybe he’s not Zak either.
*** *** ***
Her bird falls, then climbs suddenly back over his head. Lee cranes, rolls, zooms to keep up with her. He calls into the comm, louder and louder hoping for a reaction. When he gets nothing, he retreats into math again, trajectories and probabilities…
If Kara goes first, breaks through the dense cloud cover with him right on her tail… He’ll have to be so close that her afterburner will burn the nose of his Mark VII. He can do it if she can.
Instead of shouting, Apollo begins to carefully explain the plan, expecting at every turn disagreement and catcalls. He’s supposed to be her wingman after all. At first the silence from the other viper is worse than mocking, but slowly Starbuck answers, the ship to ship equivalent of nodding along but a beginning.
Then a wave of turbulence shocks through Lee’s path. He bounces up and back. His shoulder strap digging hard through his flightsuit until they hit muscle and bone. He yelps and groans as he’s thrown left and right this time. He can hardly breathe for a moment. Then he hears Kara in his ear, knows he can hang on. If he can only convince her to come along.
“No, no. I don’t think I can.”
“You don’t have to do this. We can make it out of here.”
“See you on the other side.”
“That’s the spirit.”
“It’s a theoretical solution, Lee. You know that. There’s no way to know if it will actually work. We might both die.”
“Or we could both make it out of here alive. And you know that just as well as I do.”
“It’s more important that you make it back. You’re more important.”
“No, we will do this. I can’t go back without you. I won’t go without trying. Are you in?”
“I’m in.”
They go over the basics plan again. Starbuck leads. Apollo follows. They discuss thin spot into the atmosphere and debate the importance of fuel levels.
There’s only one thing left to say. Just in case…
“I love you, Kara Thrace.” The words are slow and careful. He has to make sure she hears each one. Each is important. He won’t be taking them back.
“I love you too, Lee.” Her worse comes back shaking but definite. His heart swells. “I always have.”
“And I always will,” he replies as though it’s a thing they do. He smiles.
*** *** ***
This time when she comes up over the horizon, it’s a whole new world. Kara’s face hurts she’s smiling so big. Below her is Earth. The Earth. She doesn’t know how she knows, but she does. Sure as anything she’s ever trusted.
And she needs to tell Lee, get back to him so she can show him the way. He’s waiting for her. Circling above some other planet in some other part of the universe. Waiting for her.
She hits a patch of turbulence. She’d forgotten how it is to fly in atmosphere. Her seat rock back and forth in the cockpit. Her head smashing right and left in her helmet. Her knuckles must be white inside her gloves as she holds on to the stick, trying to pull up and up and up. Holding on for dear life if she thinks about it that way. And she tries not to.
She is Starbuck. She is invincible. She will bring them to their end.
To Earth.
Author: me
Words: ~1700
Pairing: Kara/Lee
Prompt: telling the whole truth from embolalia
Beta: sci_fi_shipper
A/N: Kara and Lee kind of discuss their relationship under the hard deck during Maelstrom. And Maybe tell each other the truth.
Her viper bumps through the clouds, and when Kara opens her eyes she’s surrounded by sun light. Sunlight like she hasn’t seen since Caprica. Caprica before the Fall. The Nuclear wasteland was dead gray. Even New Caprica didn’t have the same kind of light.
She smiles, looks around for Lee. He should see this. She can’t wait for him to see this. It’s amazing.
But he’s gone and the grin fades from her face. Her eyelids flutter closed. Her body goes slack, like it’s falling through the bright, white clouds.
Leoben sits on the other side of her mother’s death bed. Kara clearly wants to strangle both of them, but she’s caught by the stack of papers. Old school papers, art projects. Things she was once proud of. Things Socrata mocked and put down.
Kara blinks away tears. She remembers running away from her mother, the fight over her ranking at the Academy. She studied so hard, worked in ways Socrata Thrace would never understand to end up 16th. Kara’s back straightens, lock into place. Attention at the side of her mother’s bed. Nothing less for a Colonial Marine.
“You’re not my mother.”
“Yes, she is. Sure as you’re Kara Thrace, she is Socrata.” Leoben says.
“No,” Kara shakes her head, clasps her hands behind her back and resets her legs. At ease.
“I always wanted the best for you,” The woman in the bed says.
“No. No, you never… You only ever showed me pain. You’re not my mother. You never were,” Kara insists.
“I never said she was,” the cylon tells her.
“And you’re not Leoben.” The realization plays across her face.
“I never said I was.”
*** *** ***
“Kara, pull up!”
When she doesn’t, Lee gives chase, continuing to chant the warning even he descends through the clouds behind her. Kara, Starbuck, doesn’t falter, and soon they’re both below the hard deck. Stuck.
Kara’s words about destiny, the phantom raider, their talk under the wing of her bird before CAP. It all makes him worry. That’s why he follows. Its’ not until they’re circling, circling that Lee fully realizes how stuck they are. How thick the atmosphere is.
Vipers have been exclusively flown in space since the Mark III, which gives Starbuck’s Mark II a fair shot at getting back through this atmosphere, thicker than that to the Colonies. Lee quickly calculates his own chances in the lighter, finer Mark VII as NOT GOOD. He winces, flips back around to look for Kara, taking in the colors and pretending he can feel the air inside his helmet.
Kara’s bird lurches. Lee swears he can see her head slamming into the control panel. Before he can call to her again she’s laughing over the comms.
“Just let me go,” she mumbles.
He’s pretty sure she’s not laughing for him, but she’s not unconscious. She speeds away form him and the giggles fade. Lee slams into the next gear to keep up. It’s almost fun. If it didn’t feel a like a chase, like Apollo is running Starbuck down, trying to keep her from hurting herself again.
“You shouldn’t been here,” she says. More lucid this time.
“I couldn’t let you go,” Lee answers, slightly desperate and a little defeated.
“You should have…” she fades out. “We’re going to die here.”
“Maybe.”
“So tell me something.” It’s wistful like sitting with her under the wing of her viper again. Lee wishes he could reach out a touch her once more. If they’re really going to die… It’s awful to be separated like this.
“Anything.”
“Tell me one thing you lied about earlier. When you were trying to get me out here.”
“I lied before… About things with Dee… They’re not what everyone thinks. I tried. I really tried, but it’s…” Faced with reality, with the reality that even his best theories on how to get out from under the hard deck under in near tragedy, Lee knows he should unburden himself, tell Kara one more time. He hesitates, breathing hard into the radio. Then finally finishes. “You. It was you.”
“I would have… If you had…” She must be thinking the same thing, be seeing the same facts and figures on their chances of escaping because Kara confesses without prompting and then goes silent.
However, her uncharacteristic quiet, moves Lee to go on, “From the first moment… it was like I always knew you. Things I don’t believe I know when I look at you. The gods and Earth… It’s all real when I look at you.”
“Oh, gods,” she gasps in response. Lee blanches even in the privacy of his cockpit. Rejection, even now.
*** *** ***
The viper jolts again. She hears Lee’s voice in her ear, explaining how they’re going to get out from under the hard deck. A textbook explanation, but this is far from a textbook situation. The words to argue back get caught in her throat, lodged until she thinks she might choke.
In fact, Kara can’t breathe at all. She bangs her hands against the control panel, trying to shake the air loose. Nothing. Panic swells in her, pressing down through the top of her head and up through her bowels and stomach.
Everything goes back again. For a split second Kara Thrace is glad.
Her raptor lands, breaking through the haze of Caprica, but it’s not Sam waiting for at the school. Zak steps out from the rest of the resistance fighters. His smile so bright it glows in the afternoon sun. He looks good, perfect. Perfect and happy like the last afternoon she saw him.
Kara shudders and moves back, but he’s running towards her, scooping her up and twirling her around. No one has ever been so excited to see Kara Thrace. She laughs, cackles. Tears come rolling down her cheeks.
“It’s good to see you,” she whispers because if she speaks out loud she’ll start to cry.
“Good to see you too. Almost gave up on you coming.”
“I promised. I promised you’d get your wings.” The words sound wrong to her ears before right coming out of her mouth. She cocks her head trying to make sense of the gap between.
Zak doesn’t miss a beat though. He grins and pulls her tighter before setting her gently on the ground. “That you did. And you always come through, don’t you?”
“I try,” Kara grins.
“So keep your promise to him,” Zak says.
“To… to… to who?” She’s afraid to hear the answer but tries to keep smiling. She always wants to keep smiling for Zak.
“He needs you Kara. Lee needs you to make it back with him. Don’t lose him this time.”
Zak gives a little shove and Kara stumbles back to the raptor, only it’s her viper. She blinks, readjusts. Maybe he’s not Zak either.
*** *** ***
Her bird falls, then climbs suddenly back over his head. Lee cranes, rolls, zooms to keep up with her. He calls into the comm, louder and louder hoping for a reaction. When he gets nothing, he retreats into math again, trajectories and probabilities…
If Kara goes first, breaks through the dense cloud cover with him right on her tail… He’ll have to be so close that her afterburner will burn the nose of his Mark VII. He can do it if she can.
Instead of shouting, Apollo begins to carefully explain the plan, expecting at every turn disagreement and catcalls. He’s supposed to be her wingman after all. At first the silence from the other viper is worse than mocking, but slowly Starbuck answers, the ship to ship equivalent of nodding along but a beginning.
Then a wave of turbulence shocks through Lee’s path. He bounces up and back. His shoulder strap digging hard through his flightsuit until they hit muscle and bone. He yelps and groans as he’s thrown left and right this time. He can hardly breathe for a moment. Then he hears Kara in his ear, knows he can hang on. If he can only convince her to come along.
“No, no. I don’t think I can.”
“You don’t have to do this. We can make it out of here.”
“See you on the other side.”
“That’s the spirit.”
“It’s a theoretical solution, Lee. You know that. There’s no way to know if it will actually work. We might both die.”
“Or we could both make it out of here alive. And you know that just as well as I do.”
“It’s more important that you make it back. You’re more important.”
“No, we will do this. I can’t go back without you. I won’t go without trying. Are you in?”
“I’m in.”
They go over the basics plan again. Starbuck leads. Apollo follows. They discuss thin spot into the atmosphere and debate the importance of fuel levels.
There’s only one thing left to say. Just in case…
“I love you, Kara Thrace.” The words are slow and careful. He has to make sure she hears each one. Each is important. He won’t be taking them back.
“I love you too, Lee.” Her worse comes back shaking but definite. His heart swells. “I always have.”
“And I always will,” he replies as though it’s a thing they do. He smiles.
*** *** ***
This time when she comes up over the horizon, it’s a whole new world. Kara’s face hurts she’s smiling so big. Below her is Earth. The Earth. She doesn’t know how she knows, but she does. Sure as anything she’s ever trusted.
And she needs to tell Lee, get back to him so she can show him the way. He’s waiting for her. Circling above some other planet in some other part of the universe. Waiting for her.
She hits a patch of turbulence. She’d forgotten how it is to fly in atmosphere. Her seat rock back and forth in the cockpit. Her head smashing right and left in her helmet. Her knuckles must be white inside her gloves as she holds on to the stick, trying to pull up and up and up. Holding on for dear life if she thinks about it that way. And she tries not to.
She is Starbuck. She is invincible. She will bring them to their end.
To Earth.