Fic: Just Another Word
Title: Just Another Word
Author: frolicndetour
Characters: Kara, Lee, God
Spoilers: Through Daybreak II
Rating: PG-13 (to be safe); adult concepts
Length: 1664 words
For rayruz, prompt: A positive experience from Kara’s youth that had a hand in shaping who she became.
Kara was almost six when she saw the ocean for the first time. Daddy said the sea was good for inspiration, and he talked Momma into taking a rare leave of absence to come with him. They got there on a Tuesday, so the beach wasn't even too crowded. Daddy held her as she kicked against the gentle waves, scared she might dissolve in the vastness of the water. They thought she was afraid of drowning, but it wasn't that. But she didn't have the words to explain, and she knew they wouldn't want to hear it even if she did.
The next morning Kara stood by the door with her towel until Daddy finished breakfast. Momma stayed behind with the newspaper; not having anywhere to go first thing was vacation enough for her. The water was warmer than the morning air. Fighting her nerves, she made Daddy let go and paddled out as far as she could before he called her back. Again and again, she swam away and then back to his waiting arms to catch her breath. They stayed in until Daddy said he was freezing.
"I thought you might turn into some kind of sea creature and disappear forever," he said, wrapping her up in a towel. Kara giggled, but the shiver that ran through her wasn't only from the cold.
*
"The first time I got in that cockpit I just...felt like I belonged," she told her mother, the last time she saw her (almost.) It wasn't entirely true. It was mostly through sheer stubbornness that she survived the first few weeks of simulations. She was good - judging from her instructor's reaction, she was damn good - but she'd been good at Pyramid too. It wasn't until they finally let her try it out in space that she felt it. Out among the stars - they pierced her heart and filled it with a freedom she had never felt before, not like this. She drank half her cadet squad under the table that night to commemorate the occasion, but still couldn't quite drown the exhilaration.
After that, things clicked into place. She no longer thought about how her life might have been different if a particularly vicious foul and a bad landing hadn't put an end to her college plans. Nothing beat the rush of flying, or the sense of rightness. Like everything she loved, it frightened her a little.
Sometimes, she told Sam, on a night when they couldn't see the stars, she thought she left a piece of herself up there one time, and had to keep going back to find it again.
"Just don't leave too much," he told her enigmatically, arm wrapped around as if to hold her steady on the earth. And he did, for a little while. Soon enough she was back up there, another piece broken, and worse than any knee injury. But it was a long time before she found the part she'd left behind.
*
She could hear Lee's voice through the rush in her ears, calling her back. Her hand hovered on the eject lever. She could fly back to him, let him hold her up above the waves. She reached down, grasped her mother's hand instead.
"I'm not afraid anymore."
So what are you afraid of, he had asked her once, and she told him. Lee thought it was morbid to think about death every time she flew, thought it was dangerous. But dangerous didn't seem all that relevant when she spent hours of her life with a few layers of metal between her and the vacuum of space that somehow, never felt empty.
"Being forgotten," she told him, remembering a day long ago, a childhood terror of her tiny body dissolving in the ocean.
He was still calling for her, promising to come and get her, but she was ready. It was the end of everything, but she wouldn't lose herself.
"They're waiting for me."
*
Come on, Starbuck.
The Six sounded almost disappointed. Kara rushed her, already bracing for impact as those impossibly strong arms sent her head first into the base of a statue.
“Got anything left?”
Kara stayed down, waiting for the Six to turn her back. They'd been through this before.
This time when she rushed her it was with more fury than desperation. It was no surprise when the Six vanished in her grasp, only to yank her back by the hair just before she reached the edge, stars dancing in front of her eyes as the Six pulled her into a chokehold.
“You have a tiresome penchant for self-destruction” she whispered, finally throwing Kara to the ground. “After all I did to put you back together.”
Memory rushed back at her words, fury with it, but it was all Kara could do to keep sucking down air. She sensed that the Six had vanished just as a hand reached down, pressing a cool cloth to her bleeding forehead. She took the cloth without turning around, not quite ready to see him.
“Not like you ever gave me much choice,” she muttered, once she could speak. But it was her father’s voice that answered her.
“Is that what this is all about?” It was the same voice her real father had used when he soothed her as a tiny girl, after she’d been punished for throwing a tantrum. He reached for her hand, and she felt a sharp longing for his comfort and approval. Part of her knew this was the same… thing she had been trying to kill only moments before, but she couldn’t help but respond to it in this form.
“That’s not quite how I remember it,” he told her. She stared at her hand in his, remembered reaching for the eject lever, and pulling away. But she shook her head.
“You set me up. You put me exactly where you needed me to be. You knew I would do what you wanted.”
“Because I know you.”
“And what about her,” she sneered, deliberately avoiding the familiar term. “Did you know her too, when you sent her that Oracle?”
“Momma had her part to play just like you did, sweetheart,” he told her, and Kara had never wanted to punch someone so badly in her life. The frakker was still talking to her like her father, not the washed-up composer she had barely recognized only weeks before, but the way he spoke to her when she was six.
“Must have been pretty entertaining for you, huh? Kick over an anthill, watch ‘em run around.” Tell her mother and Leoben just enough to make them - to make her - crazy. My gods, she thought, then nearly laughed aloud at the irony.
“We only gave them the truth,” he said, as if he’d heard her unspoken thoughts - which, she assumed, he most certainly had.
“You knew what they would do with it.” She hated the plaintive tone of her voice, hated still worse the way the thing with her father’s face was looking at her. Compassionate and utterly unaffected.
“Knowledge isn’t force. We all write our own destinies. You told me that, remember?”
She closed her eyes. “Do you think,” she managed through gritted teeth, “you could not look like my father when you say that?”
Laughter. Eyes still closed, Kara felt rather than saw the world shift around her, opened them again to Leoben’s impish grin. The museum was gone; they were back in her apartment, spiraling colors still uncovered on the wall.
“You know what I still don’t get,” she asked, staring into the mandala, “why you needed me for all this. The do-it-yourself approach not your style?”
“Not our style,” he replied, with the same maddening implacability. “Your people needed a leader, someone who could walk in the space between life and death and not lose her way. That someone was you.”
“Well, I never asked to be your instrument.”
He was silent for a moment, surprising her. Then: “What if I take you back?”
“Take me back where?” She didn’t have to ask; in the back of her mind she could still hear Lee calling to her, begging her to climb.
“You would do that?”
He nodded, eyes never leaving her face. “I’ve done it before.”
Her thoughts whirled. “Then what happens? We lose Earth?”
“Paradise never came without a sacrifice.”
“So that’s it, right? I refuse to kill myself, and you leave us to wander forever.”
He shrugged. “Changing the past makes the future uncertain. But the choice is yours. Think about it, Starbuck.”
*
Kara woke with the stars in her eyes, dreams not fully faded. She was trying to decide whether the rock digging into her back was worth the effort of moving when the darkness above her resolved into a familiar face.
“Can’t sleep?” Lee was grinning.
“Apparently not.” But her annoyance wasn’t very convincing, and Lee simply offered her a hand up.
They walked in silence until the last makeshift tent disappeared in the darkness, until Lee stopped suddenly and tightened his hold around her arm.
“Kara,” he said, and his smile shone brighter than the stars, “we’re standing on it.”
When she kissed him first, she wondered if he knew.
*
She could hear Lee's voice through the rush in her ears, calling her back. Her hand hovered on the eject lever.
I want to explore.
She reached down, grasped her mother's hand instead.
I want to climb mountains, I want to cross the oceans.
Kara smiled. She didn’t know what lay beyond the sea and the mountains, but she was ready to find out. Couldn’t be outdone, after all.
The wind ruffled her hair like a gentle reminder.
Alright, she thought, closing her eyes. You win this one.
Don’t get used to it.
--0--
Author: frolicndetour
Characters: Kara, Lee, God
Spoilers: Through Daybreak II
Rating: PG-13 (to be safe); adult concepts
Length: 1664 words
For rayruz, prompt: A positive experience from Kara’s youth that had a hand in shaping who she became.
Kara was almost six when she saw the ocean for the first time. Daddy said the sea was good for inspiration, and he talked Momma into taking a rare leave of absence to come with him. They got there on a Tuesday, so the beach wasn't even too crowded. Daddy held her as she kicked against the gentle waves, scared she might dissolve in the vastness of the water. They thought she was afraid of drowning, but it wasn't that. But she didn't have the words to explain, and she knew they wouldn't want to hear it even if she did.
The next morning Kara stood by the door with her towel until Daddy finished breakfast. Momma stayed behind with the newspaper; not having anywhere to go first thing was vacation enough for her. The water was warmer than the morning air. Fighting her nerves, she made Daddy let go and paddled out as far as she could before he called her back. Again and again, she swam away and then back to his waiting arms to catch her breath. They stayed in until Daddy said he was freezing.
"I thought you might turn into some kind of sea creature and disappear forever," he said, wrapping her up in a towel. Kara giggled, but the shiver that ran through her wasn't only from the cold.
*
"The first time I got in that cockpit I just...felt like I belonged," she told her mother, the last time she saw her (almost.) It wasn't entirely true. It was mostly through sheer stubbornness that she survived the first few weeks of simulations. She was good - judging from her instructor's reaction, she was damn good - but she'd been good at Pyramid too. It wasn't until they finally let her try it out in space that she felt it. Out among the stars - they pierced her heart and filled it with a freedom she had never felt before, not like this. She drank half her cadet squad under the table that night to commemorate the occasion, but still couldn't quite drown the exhilaration.
After that, things clicked into place. She no longer thought about how her life might have been different if a particularly vicious foul and a bad landing hadn't put an end to her college plans. Nothing beat the rush of flying, or the sense of rightness. Like everything she loved, it frightened her a little.
Sometimes, she told Sam, on a night when they couldn't see the stars, she thought she left a piece of herself up there one time, and had to keep going back to find it again.
"Just don't leave too much," he told her enigmatically, arm wrapped around as if to hold her steady on the earth. And he did, for a little while. Soon enough she was back up there, another piece broken, and worse than any knee injury. But it was a long time before she found the part she'd left behind.
*
She could hear Lee's voice through the rush in her ears, calling her back. Her hand hovered on the eject lever. She could fly back to him, let him hold her up above the waves. She reached down, grasped her mother's hand instead.
"I'm not afraid anymore."
So what are you afraid of, he had asked her once, and she told him. Lee thought it was morbid to think about death every time she flew, thought it was dangerous. But dangerous didn't seem all that relevant when she spent hours of her life with a few layers of metal between her and the vacuum of space that somehow, never felt empty.
"Being forgotten," she told him, remembering a day long ago, a childhood terror of her tiny body dissolving in the ocean.
He was still calling for her, promising to come and get her, but she was ready. It was the end of everything, but she wouldn't lose herself.
"They're waiting for me."
*
Come on, Starbuck.
The Six sounded almost disappointed. Kara rushed her, already bracing for impact as those impossibly strong arms sent her head first into the base of a statue.
“Got anything left?”
Kara stayed down, waiting for the Six to turn her back. They'd been through this before.
This time when she rushed her it was with more fury than desperation. It was no surprise when the Six vanished in her grasp, only to yank her back by the hair just before she reached the edge, stars dancing in front of her eyes as the Six pulled her into a chokehold.
“You have a tiresome penchant for self-destruction” she whispered, finally throwing Kara to the ground. “After all I did to put you back together.”
Memory rushed back at her words, fury with it, but it was all Kara could do to keep sucking down air. She sensed that the Six had vanished just as a hand reached down, pressing a cool cloth to her bleeding forehead. She took the cloth without turning around, not quite ready to see him.
“Not like you ever gave me much choice,” she muttered, once she could speak. But it was her father’s voice that answered her.
“Is that what this is all about?” It was the same voice her real father had used when he soothed her as a tiny girl, after she’d been punished for throwing a tantrum. He reached for her hand, and she felt a sharp longing for his comfort and approval. Part of her knew this was the same… thing she had been trying to kill only moments before, but she couldn’t help but respond to it in this form.
“That’s not quite how I remember it,” he told her. She stared at her hand in his, remembered reaching for the eject lever, and pulling away. But she shook her head.
“You set me up. You put me exactly where you needed me to be. You knew I would do what you wanted.”
“Because I know you.”
“And what about her,” she sneered, deliberately avoiding the familiar term. “Did you know her too, when you sent her that Oracle?”
“Momma had her part to play just like you did, sweetheart,” he told her, and Kara had never wanted to punch someone so badly in her life. The frakker was still talking to her like her father, not the washed-up composer she had barely recognized only weeks before, but the way he spoke to her when she was six.
“Must have been pretty entertaining for you, huh? Kick over an anthill, watch ‘em run around.” Tell her mother and Leoben just enough to make them - to make her - crazy. My gods, she thought, then nearly laughed aloud at the irony.
“We only gave them the truth,” he said, as if he’d heard her unspoken thoughts - which, she assumed, he most certainly had.
“You knew what they would do with it.” She hated the plaintive tone of her voice, hated still worse the way the thing with her father’s face was looking at her. Compassionate and utterly unaffected.
“Knowledge isn’t force. We all write our own destinies. You told me that, remember?”
She closed her eyes. “Do you think,” she managed through gritted teeth, “you could not look like my father when you say that?”
Laughter. Eyes still closed, Kara felt rather than saw the world shift around her, opened them again to Leoben’s impish grin. The museum was gone; they were back in her apartment, spiraling colors still uncovered on the wall.
“You know what I still don’t get,” she asked, staring into the mandala, “why you needed me for all this. The do-it-yourself approach not your style?”
“Not our style,” he replied, with the same maddening implacability. “Your people needed a leader, someone who could walk in the space between life and death and not lose her way. That someone was you.”
“Well, I never asked to be your instrument.”
He was silent for a moment, surprising her. Then: “What if I take you back?”
“Take me back where?” She didn’t have to ask; in the back of her mind she could still hear Lee calling to her, begging her to climb.
“You would do that?”
He nodded, eyes never leaving her face. “I’ve done it before.”
Her thoughts whirled. “Then what happens? We lose Earth?”
“Paradise never came without a sacrifice.”
“So that’s it, right? I refuse to kill myself, and you leave us to wander forever.”
He shrugged. “Changing the past makes the future uncertain. But the choice is yours. Think about it, Starbuck.”
*
Kara woke with the stars in her eyes, dreams not fully faded. She was trying to decide whether the rock digging into her back was worth the effort of moving when the darkness above her resolved into a familiar face.
“Can’t sleep?” Lee was grinning.
“Apparently not.” But her annoyance wasn’t very convincing, and Lee simply offered her a hand up.
They walked in silence until the last makeshift tent disappeared in the darkness, until Lee stopped suddenly and tightened his hold around her arm.
“Kara,” he said, and his smile shone brighter than the stars, “we’re standing on it.”
When she kissed him first, she wondered if he knew.
*
She could hear Lee's voice through the rush in her ears, calling her back. Her hand hovered on the eject lever.
I want to explore.
She reached down, grasped her mother's hand instead.
I want to climb mountains, I want to cross the oceans.
Kara smiled. She didn’t know what lay beyond the sea and the mountains, but she was ready to find out. Couldn’t be outdone, after all.
The wind ruffled her hair like a gentle reminder.
Alright, she thought, closing her eyes. You win this one.
Don’t get used to it.
--0--