Wow, this fic totally sucked me in! Honestly, I thought it was going to be more of a Kara/Lee fic, and while I like those characters separately for different reasons, I'm not into them as a ship at all. But I really enjoyed this exploration of Kara's psyche and what motivated her to fall so hard for Cain, because I've always kind of wondered. I think you did an admirable job explaining a lot of that too me, and one thing that I hadn't really considered, was how much Cain resembles Socrata Thrace in demeanor and expectations. Like Socrata, Cain treats Kara as both special and both as kind of a diamond in the rough needing to be harshly polished and tested repeatedly. What made me suddenly realized this was this section:
Holding to her silence, Kara knew better than to try to explain. The Admiral wasn’t here looking for answers, she was here to punish. Stammered excuses would only made her look weak. So, even as Cain paced a slow circle around her, Kara held her tongue.
“I asked you a question, Captain.” The words were coldly spoken despite the heat of anger behind them.
This too followed the pattern. Demand an answer, just to have words to twist and denigrate. But it didn’t matter that she intimately recognized the game the Admiral was playing, and how it would end, Kara was obligated to take her turn now.
The way this dynamic is so intimately familiar to Kara says so much about how Kara was raised. I loved how your fic made me come to that realization in this one shocked moment.
Also, I found the whole tense interaction between Kara, Lee, Gaius and Gina utterly gripping and believable. No one at any point did anything even vaguely out of character, as far as I'm concerned, every reaction felt utterly true, including Gina's willingness to let herself be shot and Lee willingness to be the one to shoot Cain to save Kara's soul, as she puts it. And I love that she outthinks Cain. Smart Kara!
Kara/Lee are where my heart resides, but I don't see one of them only in how he/she relates to the other. There is so much to explore with the characters and actions as they relate to others. And I wished that the Cain/Kara dynamic had had longer to evolve. It makes sense that Kara would have been drawn to this type of personality and, though she isn't shown as an impressionable nugget, Kara always struck me as being very vulnerable in ways that Cain would have exploited.
Glad that the other characters didn't wander OOC. Sometimes they sneak away when I'm not paying attention :^) Thanks for the R&R and all your kind words!
Holding to her silence, Kara knew better than to try to explain. The Admiral wasn’t here looking for answers, she was here to punish. Stammered excuses would only made her look weak. So, even as Cain paced a slow circle around her, Kara held her tongue.
“I asked you a question, Captain.” The words were coldly spoken despite the heat of anger behind them.
This too followed the pattern. Demand an answer, just to have words to twist and denigrate. But it didn’t matter that she intimately recognized the game the Admiral was playing, and how it would end, Kara was obligated to take her turn now.
The way this dynamic is so intimately familiar to Kara says so much about how Kara was raised. I loved how your fic made me come to that realization in this one shocked moment.
Also, I found the whole tense interaction between Kara, Lee, Gaius and Gina utterly gripping and believable. No one at any point did anything even vaguely out of character, as far as I'm concerned, every reaction felt utterly true, including Gina's willingness to let herself be shot and Lee willingness to be the one to shoot Cain to save Kara's soul, as she puts it. And I love that she outthinks Cain. Smart Kara!
Very engaging stuff!
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Glad that the other characters didn't wander OOC. Sometimes they sneak away when I'm not paying attention :^) Thanks for the R&R and all your kind words!
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