Challenge #1, Prompt #30

Dec 04, 2007 08:57

Title: Nothing and Nothing
Author: alissabobissa
Rating: PG-13, for some language
Genre: Gen
Character/Pairing: Racetrack
Warnings: none
Spoilers: through mid season three
Prompt: Racetrack, why she stayed on Galactica in the missing year
Summary: Racetrack playing triad with Kara and others while thinking about and dicussing New Caprica. Set around the time of 'Unfinished business.'



“You’re light.” She stared at her cards and the fingers holding them. Wow. She really needed to find a manicure kit. Maybe she could get one off of a civvie down in Dogsville.

“Racetrack!” Kara’s fingers snapped in front of her face and she looked up.

“Huh?”

“Ante up.” Margaret threw her money onto the table and sighed.

“Don’t let us keep you from whatever fascinating daydream you had going there, Lieutenant. If you have something better to do, by all means, get the frak outta here and stop slowing up the game.” She didn’t respond with any kind of apology; Starbuck would only mock her for that. She simply glared at Kara - something she knew the other woman could respect.

The other faces at the table - Helo, Gaeta, and Narcho - just looked from one woman to the other. What were they expecting? Some kind of brawl? Typical. Really, Starbuck can only slam a girl’s face into a table so many times before it gets boring.

After a moment’s stare off, Kara grinned and silently offered her a shot of what smelled like motor oil. They both downed their shots and Margaret immediately disposed of another only to be met with cat calls and exclamations from around the Rec Room.

“Margaret Edmondson. I’m surprised at you,” Helo said slapping his cards onto the table face down. “I know you didn’t get that call sign for nothing, but I think we all remember what happened last time you started off the evening this way,” he said as if cautioning a child.

“That was one time, and I didn’t ask you to carry me all the way back to my rack.” This was received with “oooohhs” from the table, and Racetrack just smirked.

“Well how the frak did you think you were gonna get there? You couldn’t even stand. I can’t help it if I’m a gentleman.”

Before she could make a retort, Gaeta interrupted chuckling. “Wait. What? Racetrack got trashed? I don’t remember this. What happened?”

“Oh man, it seems like it’s been forever. It’s been what? Six months, maybe,” Helo answered.

“Was this before or after the fleet jumped and left us to the Cylons?” A chair on the other side of the room skidded, but otherwise the room was silent. Kara had made her comment with bent head, looking at her cards and everyone just stopped. It was always funny to Margaret that Starbuck could hold so much sway over a room of pilots, and now she seemed to almost be issuing a challenge to them. It’s like she was saying, “Go on, talk to me about New Caprica. I dare you.”

“Before,” was all Racetrack said. She would have loved to have added “and before we came back and saved your asses, too,” but she knew better. It had been a few months since Kara stopped coming to the Rec Room just to pick a fight with anyone who stayed in the service during that year and she had gone back to being just Starbuck. Well, mostly. Every now and again Kara let it be known that she was in no way “over” her time spent planet side. Must be one of those days.

Margaret’s answer had broken the silence and games around the room began up again. Kara’s head remained bent over her cards and Helo cleared his throat.

“Okay, come on. Back to the game,” he said tapping his cards on the table. Kara didn’t look up and Racetrack wondered about what horrors she might be remembering. Gods know it was bad down there, but it had to have been good at some point. Right?

Kara took in a sharp breath and poured herself another drink. She took her shot and said, “Game on. Bet’s to you Narcho.”

Racetrack and Helo folded after the first bet, and even Starbuck bowed out the next go round. By the time Gaeta was raking the small pile of cubits into his even bigger pile everyone was laughing again and cursing Gaeta’s luck.

“Hey, Felix. You went to that dingy little tent they called a bar on New Caprica, right? I think I saw you there a few times,” Kara said.

“Uh, yeah. They called it Irving’s. Why?”

“No reason. Just remembering the booze. I think it might have actually tasted worse than this crap.” Kara laughed and took another drink. This had to be a first for Margaret: witnessing Starbuck actually laughing about a memory of that Gods-awful planet. She wondered what could possibly have made her settle there. Sure, everybody knows about that jock husband of hers, but the way she heard it, Kara could have had him anywhere. So why go down there?

Margaret knew she had made the right decision. For her there really wasn’t an option. What could that planet offer her? Who would she be down there? Nothing and nothing. She didn’t have a family or a skill that would be needed in the settlement. Serving in the military was her life, and the day the Cylons attacked the Colonies she accepted that she would die in battle defending the fleet and taking as many toasters with her as possible. No shiny new planet was going to change that. At least not this planet.

The year she spent defending New Caprica from above hadn’t been as boring as it sounded. Less crew meant more for her to do, more responsibility, so she was always busy. And there was never a shortage of crazy things to do on a battlestar. Endless amusement came from messing with Kat and Hot Dog - the Wonder Twins, as she and Helo called them. She wondered whatever happened to their uniforms that had mysteriously come back pink from laundry services that one time. The matching pink was actually kind of cute.

The fact that she had inadvertently discovered that wretched planet only bothered Racetrack every once in a while. It wasn’t her idea to move most of humanity down there. She had voted for Roslin after all. She knew it was irrational to blame herself even in the smallest degree for what happened with the Cylons and New Caprica, but it was there in the back of her head. She thought about it more than she’d ever admit, and not just anytime someone mentioned a toaster-related hardship from the surface. Funny how rationality has nothing to do with guilt.

“No way! That guy could have beaten out Tigh for Ambrosia King,” Gaeta said laughing. Kara offered him a drink and they both laughed when Gaeta imitated the poor guy slurring, “Got any peanuts?”

“Edmondson! Wake the frak up. What is with you tonight?”

“Oh, sorry. It’s to me?” She had no problem apologizing to Helo. “Um, I’m out.”

“What happened to ECO solidarity?” Helo joked. “Guess I’ll have to kick Starbuck’s ass all by myself.”

“Wearing your big boy pants today, huh Helo? Okay, I call.” Starbuck put her cards on the table but Helo just laughed.

“Full colors! And Starbuck goes down! Up top Raptor jocks,” Helo said as he stood and leaned over the table for Racetrack to high five him.

“So this is what we had to defend us for a whole year. Over inflated Raptor pilots and Hot Dog? Damn sorry lot if you ask me,” said Kara shaking her head and grinning.

“We all can’t run off and marry a pro athlete, ya know.”

“No, some of us marry toasters.” Kara could barely get the words out before a great cackle overtook her. Margaret joined in and snorted a little too loudly. All heads turned towards her.

“Yeah Racetrack. Why didn’t you hitch yourself to some fine young pilot and move planet side?” Helo asked. “I’m sure Hot Dog would have been more than happy to make you a Costanza.”

“Frak off, Karl.”

“Oh, come on Lieutenant. What made you stay on the Bucket when everyone else was making a break for land?” Kara asked a little too seriously. Her tone was light, but her eyes held a weight that couldn’t be ignored. Margaret kept quiet, but Starbuck locked her gaze on her. Something in Kara’s face - something almost vulnerable - made her want to shed her usual mask of sarcasm and answer truthfully.

“Okay, fine. New Caprica wasn’t Earth. Me - I’m waiting for the real thing.”

Kara raised her cup. “So say we all.”

ch#1:fic, gen, margaret edmondson

Previous post Next post
Up
[]