Second Time Around
Title: Second Time Around
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica
Characters: Kara Thrace, Lee Adama
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Daybreak
Summary: In the end, she’s just Kara.
Author's Note: Written for taragel's gen ficathon, karathracelives. Prompt: Second Time Around. Best followed with workerbee73's Full Circle.
She doesn’t realize this is the end until she watches the Old Man and Laura fly off in their raptor. Then suddenly she knows, like a switch is flipped, like a veil lifts and the world around her seems suddenly clearer. Brighter. She wonders if this is what Sam felt like when he realized he was a cylon. She wonders for the millionth time what the hell she is, because she knows she’s not a machine, but now she’s certain she’s not quite human either.
Lee’s voice startles her back to the present. “You know, my very earliest memory of my father was him flying away in a big plane, and wondering when he was coming back.” Her heart clenches, aches for Lee because she knows what’s coming and she knows she can’t stay. “He’s not coming back this time.”
“No. He’s not.” Quicker is better, she decides. Better to tell him now than to wait until they’ve settled here. Better he finds his way on his own. “Neither am I.”
“Where are you going?”
“I don’t know,” she tells him and it’s the truth, but its not. She knows she’s going home. Where or what that is… she has no clue. “I just know that I am done here. I’ve completed my journey. And… it feels good.”
She tries to smile for him, tries to reassure him, and he almost quirks a smile back but she knows they’re both lying. Her pulse pounds with the uncertainty of it all, and with the certainty that this is painfully unfair to Lee. It’s almost funny that here at the end of things, no more commitments, no more barriers, no more brothers or spouses or regs or anything to stand in their way… now is when she has to go. Typical. Can’t catch a break in this frakking universe.
She knows her time is running out. She can feel the world contracting, like the moment before an FTL jump. Won’t be long now.
The silence is long and stifling, and she has to break it because she doesn’t want this to be about loss. “So what about you? What are you gonna do?” She hears the cliché in her head before she says it, and knows it sounds trite and stupid, but she can’t resist: “Today is the first day of the rest of your life, Lee.”
“Well, I always thought when this was all done that I would, uh, kick back. Relax. Spend the rest of my days doing the absolute minimum humanly possible.”
She listens to the sound of his voice more than his words as the breeze whips her hair against her face and she wonders when she last stood in the wind and sun. The algae planet had blazing sun but no breeze, so that leaves New Caprica. She wonders if she was ever really on New Caprica, or if the real Kara Thrace died in that burnt out viper on Earth. Figures in the end, it doesn’t matter.
In the end, she’s just Kara. And she realizes there’s no place she’d rather spend her last few minutes of existence than a grassy field with Lee Adama, safe in the knowledge that the fight is over. She wonders if he’ll ever know how proud she is of him, of them, of the work that they did and the journey they made. All of them, but Lee especially. The words stick in her throat.
“And now that you’re here?” she asks him, voice tight under the pressure of keeping herself grounded. This isn’t the moment. Not quite yet.
“I want to explore!” She smiles, thinks Now and Good luck on your journey, Lee Adama, and as he’s talking about mountains she closes her eyes and wonders if its easier the second time around. Then she figures she doesn’t remember the first, so how would she even know?
When she opens her eyes, she’s standing on a wide, lush riverbank and Zak is grinning at her.
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica
Characters: Kara Thrace, Lee Adama
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Daybreak
Summary: In the end, she’s just Kara.
Author's Note: Written for taragel's gen ficathon, karathracelives. Prompt: Second Time Around. Best followed with workerbee73's Full Circle.
She doesn’t realize this is the end until she watches the Old Man and Laura fly off in their raptor. Then suddenly she knows, like a switch is flipped, like a veil lifts and the world around her seems suddenly clearer. Brighter. She wonders if this is what Sam felt like when he realized he was a cylon. She wonders for the millionth time what the hell she is, because she knows she’s not a machine, but now she’s certain she’s not quite human either.
Lee’s voice startles her back to the present. “You know, my very earliest memory of my father was him flying away in a big plane, and wondering when he was coming back.” Her heart clenches, aches for Lee because she knows what’s coming and she knows she can’t stay. “He’s not coming back this time.”
“No. He’s not.” Quicker is better, she decides. Better to tell him now than to wait until they’ve settled here. Better he finds his way on his own. “Neither am I.”
“Where are you going?”
“I don’t know,” she tells him and it’s the truth, but its not. She knows she’s going home. Where or what that is… she has no clue. “I just know that I am done here. I’ve completed my journey. And… it feels good.”
She tries to smile for him, tries to reassure him, and he almost quirks a smile back but she knows they’re both lying. Her pulse pounds with the uncertainty of it all, and with the certainty that this is painfully unfair to Lee. It’s almost funny that here at the end of things, no more commitments, no more barriers, no more brothers or spouses or regs or anything to stand in their way… now is when she has to go. Typical. Can’t catch a break in this frakking universe.
She knows her time is running out. She can feel the world contracting, like the moment before an FTL jump. Won’t be long now.
The silence is long and stifling, and she has to break it because she doesn’t want this to be about loss. “So what about you? What are you gonna do?” She hears the cliché in her head before she says it, and knows it sounds trite and stupid, but she can’t resist: “Today is the first day of the rest of your life, Lee.”
“Well, I always thought when this was all done that I would, uh, kick back. Relax. Spend the rest of my days doing the absolute minimum humanly possible.”
She listens to the sound of his voice more than his words as the breeze whips her hair against her face and she wonders when she last stood in the wind and sun. The algae planet had blazing sun but no breeze, so that leaves New Caprica. She wonders if she was ever really on New Caprica, or if the real Kara Thrace died in that burnt out viper on Earth. Figures in the end, it doesn’t matter.
In the end, she’s just Kara. And she realizes there’s no place she’d rather spend her last few minutes of existence than a grassy field with Lee Adama, safe in the knowledge that the fight is over. She wonders if he’ll ever know how proud she is of him, of them, of the work that they did and the journey they made. All of them, but Lee especially. The words stick in her throat.
“And now that you’re here?” she asks him, voice tight under the pressure of keeping herself grounded. This isn’t the moment. Not quite yet.
“I want to explore!” She smiles, thinks Now and Good luck on your journey, Lee Adama, and as he’s talking about mountains she closes her eyes and wonders if its easier the second time around. Then she figures she doesn’t remember the first, so how would she even know?
When she opens her eyes, she’s standing on a wide, lush riverbank and Zak is grinning at her.