FIC: Schisms, Lee/Kara, M/MA, Chapter Five
Title: Schisms, 5/?
Rating: M/MA overall; this chapter PG
Spoilers: Season 1, so far. Though this goes firmly AU before the mini.
Pairings: Kara/Lee, mentions of Kara/Zak
Wordcount: 2700 this chapter
Summary: AU fic. What if Kara never served on the Galactica before the attacks? What if Lee made a mistake he couldn't fix? Maybe some things break for a reason. WIP.
Warnings: none that I can think of... maybe angst?
Author's Note: Grateful thanks to uberscribbler, stardust_20 and cliosmuse who looked this over for me and provided tons of helpful advice. However, I can never leave things alone and have kept tweaking after they checked - so if you find any errors, they are mine! Also, many many thanks to everyone still reading and especially those commenting on chaps and the various posts I've made bewailing my writer's block - you helped a ton! Hope you enjoy. :D
Back to Chapter Four
~ * ~
Chapter Five
~ * ~
Eight raiders. Kara had downed at least that many singlehandedly in the sims. However, this was not a simulation and she had three baby birds to protect. Eight raiders wouldn’t normally be a problem without a base ship to back them up-a regular CAP could clean them up without breaking a sweat before the alert fighters even launched. This time, however, there was no CAP. And the alert fighters were at least two minutes away, an eternity in a firefight. Might as well be two hours.
The raiders would likely target the civilian fleet first. And right at that moment, Seb was at his school on the Rising Star instead of safely aboard the heavily armoured Galactica. One lucky shot-or if the raiders had nukes they didn’t even need much luck-and the consequences didn’t bear thinking about. Kara felt a jolt of fear knowing the only defence available was Galactica herself and four lone Vipers-three of which were being flown by nuggets only two days into their training.
For all Galactica’s firepower, she was big and unwieldy. She could hold her own against a base star but raiders were too small and quick to be taken out easily. A Viper in the hands of an experienced pilot could take down a raider in seconds. Galactica would take minutes. In minutes a raider could do a lot of damage.
Kara checked her readings and realised the raiders were almost on their tails and gaining. They’d likely be in weapons range before she got her baby birds home. So be it, she decided. She couldn’t let another student die because of her.
“Listen up nuggets,” she told them, “Stay together and keep your throttles firewalled until you hit that deck. Now go.” And once she was sure they’d heard and were obeying she flipped her own Viper over and headed back towards the raiders. Maybe she could keep them distracted until the alert fighters joined the party.
Kara took out the first raider and dodged fire from the others. She barely registered Kat’s voice over the comms asking Hotdog where he was going before his Viper swooped past her with its guns blazing.
“Hotdog, what are you doing?” she called as his rounds found their mark and another of the raiders spun out of control.
“Whoa, I got one!” he crowed. Frakking idiot was going to get himself killed.
“Hotdog, get out of here!”
He ignored her order and continued shooting. Damn, she should have taught him more common sense! He wasn’t ready for live combat.
Kara tried one more time to get through to him. “I thought I told you to get your ass home?”
“You said never leave your leader,” he reminded her.
“I also said never disobey an order!” Surely she had at some point. And even if she hadn’t, it went without saying.
Then one of the raiders got a shot in and his bravado vanished. “I’m hit!”
Hopefully he’s learned a lesson, she thought; if he survives it. She swung her own bird around to engage the raider that was angling in for the kill. “I got you Hotdog, we’re gonna make it through this,” she promised. “Break right, now, now, now!”
Finally he did as she asked and broke away from the fight as Kara managed to disable two more of the raiders. Just one left now, but it was behind her.
“I just lost all three mains!” Hotdog called. Now that he was clear of the fighting his panic reflexes were kicking in. This was not at all unexpected; if she got herself out of this one Kara was going to do a little post-battle panicking of her own.
“It's all right Hotdog, you did good. You're going to be okay, I promise you.” She frowned and muttered to herself, “At least one of us will.” The raider on her tail was proving hard to shake and she had the sudden feeling she wouldn’t make it back from this one.
Lords of Kobol hear my prayer, she thought. “I think I got it covered,” she said aloud. Flipping her Viper over, she fired without waiting for her stomach to catch up to the G forces.
A hit; the raider spun out of control. Then, too quickly to dodge, it was heading straight for her. It impacted with a sickening crunch and silence followed as her instruments went dead.
As her Viper spun out of control, Kara reflected that it might not have been a good idea to take on eight Cylon raiders by herself.
Lords of Kobol hear my prayer, she thought again, wrestling with the stick to no avail. Look after my son. And while you’re at it make his frakking father grow a pair.
Then she ejected.
~ * ~
Six Years Earlier
Kara left Lee’s apartment with her head held high. She was determined not to fall apart. Getting involved with Lee had been a serious misjudgement but it was too late to regret that now. Frak him, anyway.
Oddly enough, Kara hadn’t made a concrete decision until Lee had told her he didn’t want the baby. She realised she’d been expecting him to fix things. When had he become the person who fixed things for her, anyway? Kara had been used to fixing things for herself; until she’d tried to fix things for Zak and he’d ended up dead.
It was time to get used to looking after herself again. Kara’s hand came to rest on her stomach of its own accord as she remembered-not just herself now.
Frak. A baby. Would he be a hellion like his mother? Or would he be sweet and loving like Lee? Scratch that; Lee was not sweet or loving, he was a frakhead. Maybe the baby would take after Uncle Zak? She bit back a sob. Was she really going to be able to do this? Alone?
Before Kara realised she’d made the decision, she’d packed up the few possessions she actually cared about-her stogies, her leather jacket, photos of Zak (Lee’s face folded away so she wouldn’t have to look at it) and the music chip of her father’s concerto-and hopped on a transport to Leonis. The rest of her stuff she left for her landlord to deal with. Her spontaneous redecoration was likely to make sure she didn’t get her security deposit back anyway.
She wouldn’t be keeping the baby, of course. She told herself it was for the best; a kid would tie her down and she’d end up resenting it. Kara couldn’t imagine beating up on her own kid but maybe her momma had felt the same way too, once. It wasn’t worth the risk.
She got a job at a local garage servicing cars. It didn’t pay a whole lot but it kept her fed and paid the rent. And when she got too big to slide under cars Joe tactfully suggested she take over the bookkeeping until she was a little more mobile.
Surprisingly, she enjoyed keeping the business accounts balanced. Numbers lined up in neat logical columns and when you added them up you got a neat logical answer. At least there was one aspect of her life she had control over.
~ * ~
As if colliding with a dead raider and ejecting from her Viper wasn’t bad enough, she’d just been dragged half a mile through the dirt and frakked her knee up again before she’d managed to free herself from the strings of her chute. Binding the knee had eased the pain a little but she wasn’t looking forward to walking on it.
Okay, priorities, Kara told herself. Radio. She pulled it out. Totally fubar. Oxygen? The indicator was red and she threw it away in frustration. Non-breathable atmo. Helmet stays on.
“Frak!” Vocalising the word didn’t help her situation but it made her feel better. A little.
She checked the gauge on her suit and found she had roughly three quarters of a tank. That gave her a little over a day and a half to figure out a way off this rock. Or roughly two days until her son became an orphan.
Not if I have anything to frakking say about it.
Kara dragged herself upright and tried putting weight on her bad knee. It hurt like frak but if she was careful she could hobble along.
“Okay,” she muttered. “Get to higher ground. If they see you, they can rescue you.”
~ * ~
Kara wasn’t sure exactly why her adoption plan went out the window. She’d been convinced throughout the pregnancy she would never be a fit mother. She just hadn’t any example to follow that didn’t include skipping out when things got tough or broken bones as a means of discipline.
It would be overly romantic to say she’d decided the first time the baby had blinked his bewildered newborn eyes at her but it was more the thought of handing him over to someone else and going back to the life she’d had before Zak. It made her feel strangely empty.
Zak was dead, practically by her own hand. Commander Adama, though he’d said he had forgiven her for her role in Zak’s death, was unlikely to be sympathetic on finding she’d got herself pregnant within months of her fiancé’s death. She could tell him the baby was still his grandchild, of course-he might care about that-but Lee would probably deny all involvement and who was he going to believe? His own son or the woman who’d caused the death of his other son?
Lee... she should probably have known better than to rely on him. They had overwhelming physical attraction in spades but a healthy relationship? Not even close. She’d thought he had some feeling for her, especially after he was so quick to forgive her for passing Zak through Basic Flight, but over the months she’d come to accept she’d simply read him wrong.
If she gave the baby away she’d be alone again. She’d have nothing left. Nothing of Lee, nothing of Zak. Nothing of herself.
Her mother’s house had finally sold a few months back but she’d left the money sitting in an account as a matter of pride. Kara wanted to be able to say she’d take nothing from the old battle-axe dead or otherwise but she kept the money in case of emergencies. She swallowed her pride and tapped into the account to buy a small townhouse near the garage for herself and baby Sebastian.
~ * ~
Hours of limping uphill through a driving wind and the endless red dust while her oxygen slowly ran out certainly wasn’t Kara’s idea of fun but at least it afforded plenty of time for reflection.
Not surprisingly her thoughts tended to revolve around a certain five year old. She was under no illusions about the likelihood of rescue; the wind hadn’t abated and neither had the dust. Vipers would have to fly low to the ground, visibility would be minimal and, given her transponder had cut out well before she’d been caught by the gravity of the moon, they might not even know she was here at all. Not to mention the Cylons could show up with reinforcements at any minute. There was a very real probability they would not find her in time.
She was not afraid to die. She was, however, terrified of what would happen to her son if she did.
Lee was the only other person who knew that Sebastian had surviving relatives besides his mother, and he didn’t want to be a father. Sure he might’ve shown some interest but as soon as she’d suggested telling the commander he couldn’t backpedal fast enough.
Would Bill Adama consider Sebastian his responsibility if his mother died in the line of duty? Perhaps; but he might not do any more than see him settled with a good adoptive civilian family. He wouldn’t know Seb was his own blood unless Lee told him. She checked her chronometer. She’d been missing at least five hours now. Seb’s Raptor would be bringing him home from school and he’d be expecting her to meet him. Lords, why hadn’t she arranged for someone else to take care of him in case she was held up?
There was only one thing for it. She was going to have to get herself off this rock, RFN.
~ * ~
Sebastian waved politely to the shuttle pilot as he followed the other passengers through the hatch. He looked around for his mother but he couldn’t see her. He frowned. She’d promised to meet him right here-surely she would not have forgotten? Maybe she’d been held up. Well, he’d go look for her.
The hangar deck seemed even busier than it had when they had arrived yesterday. Those orange-suited people were all rushing around carrying parts of planes and some were installing them. One man was yelling at some of the others to go faster. Nobody looked very happy.
And nobody seemed to see him as he carefully made his way across the deck. A few of them nearly ran into him but he dodged them in time. Nobody stopped to ask if he was okay. Sebastian felt very small.
It was then he spotted Captain Adama. He remembered the odd way the captain had looked at him yesterday and way he’d seemed to make Mama angry for no reason. Still, there was nobody else around that Seb knew and Captain Adama was his mom’s new boss. He might know where she was.
“Captain Adama, sir?” he asked carefully.
The captain turned sharply, startled. “Sebastian,” he said. “You shouldn’t be here, civilians aren’t allowed. It’s too dangerous.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” Seb apologised. “Mama said she would meet me after school but I can’t find her. Do you know where she is?”
The captain frowned at him and Seb rather wished he’d asked someone else. Captain Adama didn’t seem to want to talk to him and he made Seb uncomfortable in a way he didn’t really understand.
“She’s on a mission,” the captain replied finally. “Last minute; I promised her I’d look out for you but I forgot what time the Raptor came in.”
Sebastian frowned; it didn’t seem likely that Mama had asked Captain Adama to look after him when she seemed to dislike him so much. Still, he was the commander’s son and Mama trusted the commander. It was all very strange and confusing.
“Come along then,” the captain said. “Let’s find someone to take care of you until your mom gets back.”
Sebastian took the hand that was offered, despite his misgivings.
~ * ~
Kara sighed. Another ridge, beyond which there was sure to be another broad expanse of nothing-but-more-sand followed by yet another ridge. Almost a whole day’s worth of walking and not a distinguishing feature to be found. To make matters worse, her oxygen was more than half gone and the light was dying.
“Lords?” she asked the air around her, tongue in cheek, “It's Kara Thrace. I'm running a little low on O2 and I could use a lucky break.” She waited a beat. “No? Okay, just thought I'd mention it.”
Gods, what was wrong with her? This was not the time for flippancy, but she couldn’t seem to help herself. She shrugged the thought away as she finally reached the top of the ridge. And then she saw it.
A raider.
Quickly, she ducked behind the ridge and drew her sidearm. She watched it carefully for a few minutes but it remained still. It didn’t look as if it had crash landed but why else would it be down here?
She’d asked the gods for a miracle, and it looked like they’d delivered. Hang in there, kid. Mama’s coming home.
~ * ~
Forward to Chapter Six
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