Fic: Thirty Three

[astreamofstars]

Ficlet written for an episode prompt over at laura_lee_bsg. Just because it's, like, wordz. And I feel I must celebrate wordz at the moment in the hope it will encourage new wordz to emerge, so I'm putting this here for posterity.

Title: Thirty Three
Characters: Laura, Billy, Lee (mentioned)
Rating: PG
Word count: c. 800

Comments

[kdbleu]

This is really lyrical and lovely. The struggle to live echoed back and forth between Laura and humanity and then to Lee is beautiful. Thank you.

[astreamofstars]

Thank you! ♥ I think the struggle to find reasons to live is something Laura and Lee have in common, to be honest, and I love the idea of Laura using Lee to represent her reason to keep on going, for his sake, even if he doesn't realise it.

[plaid_slytherin]

Oh! I love this so much. You are so, so good at writing Laura. I wish I could do that! You capture everything she'd be thinking about at this moment - the cancer, Lee. I especially love her watching the Vipers launch and think about humanity fighting back.

[astreamofstars]

Thank you, honey! Though you really aren't so bad at it yourself. You have her dialogue down wonderfully ♥

I especially love her watching the Vipers launch and think about humanity fighting back.

I love the idea of her finding beauty in something like that. In the determination to live, not in the wonder of the universe. It seemed very Laura.

[astreamofstars]

I think Laura at this point in the series would simply be overwhelmed, by everything that was going on and everything she was being asked to do and to be. And she'd get through it by narrowing her focus down to literally taking one step at a time, focusing just on the idea of keeping everyone together until they get through it. But I think she'd still have these little crisis moments of "what the hell am I doing here?" - she'd just have them very quietly and privately and in such a way that no one would realise she was having them, because she wouldn't want to make anyone feel that she was less than confident and strong in case it made them panic

[somadanne]

Hurray for writing! Go you. :)

I love the way you weave the progression of Laura's thoughts and her observations through this as these events are happening. I particularly liked the way you talked about what the jumps felt like to her.

This line is my favorite:

Minute thirty one, and the alert fighters begin to pour from the dark bulk of Galactica. So few. She watches them weave in and out of the fleet, and this, this she finds beautiful. Humanity, fighting back, clinging on to life in defiance of the vastness of space that threatens to swallow them whole.

I really felt like I was there "in her head," seeing what she's seeing and feeling what she's feeling.

[astreamofstars]

Thank you, sweetie! :)

I always wondered what a jump would actually feel like. I figured this might be an interesting way to deal with it :)

[fragrantwoods]

This really captures what I imagine those first days would have been like, before she really even knew what was what and was trying to find her way in the vast dark and exhaustion."33" always gives me chills anyway and this put a Laura-face on it. I love that Lee is her anchor at this point. Beautiful and visceral with touching details (the snoring man, the ache in her breast)--well-done.

[astreamofstars]

Thank you! :)

I always think of that time as being so muddled. And trying to keep focused on anything when you're that tired would be almost impossible. I think she would have needed some kind of human anchor at this point, just to keep reminding herself what it was that she was doing and why she was even bothering to keep trying.