[bsg] a girl to follow around
Title: A Girl To Follow Around
Rating: PG
Summary: She woke up when the sunlight was bright in the room, and Helo watched as her eyes fluttered open. Helo, Sharon, Anders, Kara (and Lee), during The Farm. Spoilers to there.
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters at all!
A/N: With thanks to pen and wisteria.
*
A Girl To Follow Around
“So, welcome to Caprica.”
“It doesn’t feel like home.”
“Give it some time. You’ll come around.”
*
When Kara went missing, Helo wasn't worried. At least, he wasn't worried like Anders was worried, and as he watched the man snap out orders, pace around the truck like it could tell him where she was, he told him to calm down.
She was Starbuck. She'd be fine, because that was written into his code of life somewhere - he believed in it like he'd once believed in the Picon Pirates for the Pyramid Cup, the healing power of ambrosia, and that his mother's chocolate cookies could make anything better.
It wasn't until they had searched everywhere at least twice for her that the first twinges of worry started, and then Sharon appeared, and for a moment, he forgot everything else.
That made him feel slightly bad, later.
*
“How many anti-radiation meds do we have?”
“Seven each.”
“So, a week.”
“Karl. Don’t worry about it. We’ll be fine. Do you have cards?”
“Triad doesn’t work with two people.”
“You just don’t want to lose your hard earned - actually, do you have anything worth losing?”
“My clothes?”
“Oh, gods, please keep them on!”
*
The rescue went perfectly, which was surprising. He couldn’t remember the last time that happened. It made him feel uneasy, like someone else was holding the royal flush and was waiting for the pot to be large enough before taking it.
He shrugged the feeling off as Kara whimpered, and looked down at where she was clutching at her side as they all but dragged her across to the heavy Raider.
“Not much further,” he told her. “You’ll be fine.”
“Frakking hurts,” she spat back at him and Helo saw Anders grin ever so slightly as he tightened his grip across her shoulders. “Frakking Cylons and their stupid frakking - ” and she trailed off into another hiss of pain.
Sharon was standing at the top of the ramp, herding people onto the ship, and Helo knew the exact moment Kara saw her because she flinched, tried to stop moving, but he and Anders were far too strong and they had been almost carrying her anyway. The minute they stepped onto Cylon transport itself, Sharon grabbed his arm and Helo left Kara - who was still resisting, even as the doors were closing - with Anders and followed Sharon to the controls. She was already barking orders at him, just like when he was her ECO, and he was far too busy for the next fifteen minutes to think about anything other than keeping as low as possible to the tree line and not crashing.
*
“Water bottles."
"Already down."
"Batteries."
"Okay. The Sharon on Galactica - “
“No.”
“Kara - “
“Drop it, Karl. And put ambrosia on the list.”
*
They were tucked into a corner, the rest of the Resistance pouring off the ship around them. Kara was lying stretched out, head on Anders’ lap, face tucked in under her jacket, hospital robe and feet dusty against the cold metal floor. Anders had both hands braced against the walls of the corner, still trying to absorb as much of the vibration and movement of the Raider as he could and as Helo approached, he looked up, shook his head.
Shit, Helo thought, and bobbed down beside her, placed his hand carefully on her shoulder. No movement. “Kara?”
There was a tiny flinch underneath his hand.
“Kara, we’re here. We need to get you off this plane.”
There was no response to that, and he waited and waited until it was obvious she wasn’t moving, and then did the only thing he could think of. “Lieutenant Thrace,” he snapped, and she jerked, made the first effort to sit up and when she looked at him, there was at least some emotion in her eyes, instead of the horrible blankness he’d seen for a moment when he’d left her in Anders’ arms, Sharon pulling him away to the controls.
She reached for him, almost instinctively, and then stopped just as Helo heard light footsteps behind him. Her face grew hard, cold. “Someone better explain why that’s here.”
There was a paralysed silence, and Helo felt Sharon’s hand warm on his shoulder. He started to explain; the theft of the heavy Raider, Sharon helping plan the attack - but then Kara shook her head, cut him off. “I don’t care anymore,” she whispered, hand pressing into her side, and Helo looked from her to Anders and saw the same worry reflected there.
“We need to get you out and lying down,” Anders said quietly, brushing his hand though her hair. “Kara?”
“Okay. Okay.” She didn’t move, and it ended up taking both of them to get her to her feet. She threw Helo one short, sharp look and then leaned into Anders, letting him take her weight as she hobbled out of the plane, and Sharon let out a long sigh beside him.
“She’ll come around,” Helo said softly. Sharon snorted.
“She hates me.”
“I don’t think she knows that you saved her.”
Sharon shrugged. “I don’t know that she’ll care.”
“Sharon. It will be fine. She’s just injured and hurt - “
“You don’t need to defend her, Helo. I understand more than you know.”
Helo fell silent, and Sharon slipped her hand through his arm as they left the Raider, followed Kara and Anders into the Base and down to the make-shift hospital deep within the school.
Kara didn’t turn around once, Helo noticed. It was like they didn’t exist.
*
"Can you stop doing that?"
"What?"
"Talking about her like that."
"Oh, I'm so sorry, Helo. I didn't realise that her stealing my Raider was supposed to endear her to me."
"We wouldn't have fit."
"We would have. Just."
"What, three people?"
"Two."
"Go back to sleep."
"Fine."
*
“She needs a shower.”
They were standing, watching Kara through a crack in the door and Helo looked up at the man standing beside him.
“Are you sure? I think it’s just her legs that are dusty - "
“She smells like hospital disinfectant,” Anders said abruptly.
At Helo’s look of confusion, he shifted awkwardly, stuffed his hands in his pockets.
“Have you ever spent much time in a hospital? It sticks to you, that smell. You can’t get it off you. I don’t want her - " Anders trailed off, glanced back through the door to where Kara was lying, not moving but not asleep, on Anders’ bunk.
Helo nodded slowly. “Okay. I’ll see if I can get some soap - "
“I’ve done that already,” Anders said, throwing Helo a small, sweet scented package. Vanilla.
“How did you get this?”
“Traded.” Anders shrugged. “There’s not much of it left, but I don’t want her waking up smelling that.”
“Okay. Where are the bathrooms?”
“There’s one just down the corridor.”
“Did you need - "
“I can handle it,” Anders answered quietly, and Helo wondered.
*
“Caprica doesn’t smell right.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s no - no humanity. That sounds stupid, but there’s just - nothing. It’s just trees and dust and nothing else...”
“I hadn’t noticed. But then, I’ve been here a while.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault.”
“You haven’t missed much. We’ve just been running from Cylons. And blowing things up.”
“Oh, just the usual post-apocalypse routine?”
“Yeah. Nothing you haven’t seen before.”
*
Helo brought Anders coffee at some point after midnight. The man was sitting slumped over in a chair next to the bunk, and he only looked up when Helo waved the cup under his nose. Took it with such gratitude that Helo clapped him on the shoulder before sitting down on the edge of Kara’s bed, tucking the blanket up around her shoulders.
“How is she?” he said, studying her face - the bruises under her eyes, the way that even deep in sleep, her face hadn’t relaxed.
Anders shrugged. “She hasn’t woken up since you were here last time. She’s been dreaming, though - I didn’t know whether to wake her.”
“She’ll wake herself up if they are bad enough.”
“Oh,” Anders said, and fiddled with his coffee cup. "She called out for someone. While she was sleeping."
"Who?"
"A Lee? I think?"
Oh, Helo thought, and looked down at the sleeping Kara, brushed back a piece of her hair. She shifted a little. "Yeah, that would make sense."
"Who is he?"
Helo shrugged. "One of her best friends, I think."
"Just a friend?"
"I don't know," he answered honestly. "He'd only just arrived on the Galactica before I ended up here.”
“So she knew him before.”
“For a while. But they weren't anything more before that."
Anders studied him a moment, and then nodded. "Okay," he said, finally. "Thanks for the coffee."
"No problem."
*
“Tell me something funny that happened on the Galactica while I was gone.”
“Something funny?”
“Something funny. As in, humorous. Makes you laugh.”
“I know what the word means, Helo. I’m just trying to think.”
“That hard?”
“Things haven’t exactly been great for us either. Then again, I didn’t have a Cylon love-bunny to make things easier for me.”
“No, I’m sure you were just off frakking - what was his name? Lee?”
“Frak you.”
*
Kara had a nightmare just before the sky was due to start lightening, and Helo jerked upright in his chair as she cried out, kicking at something. Anders was already sitting on the edge of her bed, leaning over her, running his hand through her hair, gentle soothing strokes.
“You were dead,” Kara whispered, and Helo could see her clenching her jaw against tears. “Sam. He told me you were dead.”
“Shh.” Anders pulled her into his arms, and Helo watched as Kara tucked herself up into the man, looking smaller and more vulnerable than he’d ever seen her, her face white and tears shining on her lashes. “It’s okay. It’s okay, I’m fine.”
Kara cried then, sobs that shook her whole body and Anders kissed the top of her head, looked up at Helo and jerked his head towards the door.
Helo took the hint, and shut the door as slowly as he could; watched though the crack as Anders wrapped his arms around her tightly, saying things that Helo couldn’t hear into her ear.
Sharon was standing outside, like she’d been waiting, and Helo wondered for a moment why he wasn’t surprised.
“How is she?” Sharon asked, and Helo shrugged.
“Not so good.”
Sharon nodded. “She’ll be fine. She always is.”
“Of course,” Helo answered confidently, but he thought of Kara’s body shaking, the scar on her abdomen, the way she shrunk back from anyone’s touch, and hoped desperately that Sharon was right.
*
“I had dinner there once."
"Yeah?"
"Pasta. It wasn't very good."
"What happened to your knee?”
“Oh, you know. The usual. Ejected over a moon and got dragged by the parachute. I think I hit a rock.”
“Impressive.”
“I hotwired a Raider. Do you have any idea how bad they smell?”
“You would have been a perfect match then.”
A laugh. “Gods, I’ve missed you.”
“Me too.”
*
The sun rose, and Helo made Anders get at least an hour of sleep. The man almost staggered the three steps to Kara’s bunk - Kara was in his - and Helo was sure he was unconscious before his head hit the pillow.
Helo sank into the chair next to Kara’s bed and watched her sleep, counted the bruises on her face.
Half an hour later, Sharon slipped in beside him, slid her fingers into his hand.
“I wish that hadn’t happened to her,” she said, and Helo didn’t ask why.
*
“Do you love her?”
“Yes.”
“She was my friend.”
“She still is. This is Sharon.”
“I never knew this one.”
*
She woke up when the sunlight was bright in the room, and Helo watched as her eyes fluttered open.
“Hey,” he said softly, and she looked at him a moment before she shifted over, making space for him next to her. He moved across and sat beside her. “How are you?”
“I’m fine.”
Helo laughed. “You’d say that anyway,” he told her affectionately, and brushed her hair back from her eyes. She smiled. It was faint, but it was there and Helo grinned back. “I was worried about you.”
“You shouldn’t have been. I was fine.”
Yeah, Helo thought. You were only shot, help captive by Cylons, operated on and the gods know what else. You were fine. He shook his head, turned the hand of hers not under the covers over and wrapped his fingers through hers. “Are you really okay?”
Her face crumpled just a little, and Helo knew her well enough to recognise the cloud of things she wasn’t telling him hovering in her eyes. Then she took a deep breath, nodded, and gave him a smile. It was bright, sharp at the edges.
“I killed one of those blonde bitches with a fire extinguisher.”
“Very resourceful of you.”
“I thought so.”
He smiled, squeezed her hand and she bit at her bottom lip for a moment. “Thanks,” she said finally. “I needed you.”
“Any time,” Helo replied honestly, and she smiled back. “Ready to go home?”
“Frak yes.”
He laughed.
*
“What have you missed the most?”
“Coffee.”
“Wrong. The correct answer was me, of course.”
“Oh, you think you’re so funny.”
“You know it. Seriously, though - "
“Probably flying. I know I’m not like you, Kara, but I do miss it.”
“Yeah.”
“We’ll get back. And then you can show off on CAP and I’ll tell you when you screwed up.”
“Deal.”
*
Helo tried not to watch Kara say goodbye to Anders. He held Sharon close instead, wrapped his arms around her and was guiltily glad for once it wasn’t him losing someone he cared about.
"He was a good guy," he told Kara, when they were up in the air and they couldn’t have seen the high school if there had been windows in the heavy Raider. Kara looked at him, her eyes burning.
"He is a good guy," she corrected icily, and Helo watched as she fumbled at the catch on her chain, replacing it around her neck. One dog tag was missing, and he could tell even from meters away that her fingers were shaking.
"He is." He crossed to her side, put an arm around her shoulders and after a moment she leaned into him, let her head drop onto his shoulder. "He'll be fine."
"He better be." She looked up at him, gave him a crooked smile. "I want that tag back."
Helo smiled, gave her a light squeeze. She was going to be okay.
*
“We’re going to be okay, right? Make it back to Galactica?”
“Sure.”
“Just checking.”
“Besides, if we don’t, I’m pretty sure some of the best apartments on the Aegean Peninsular are going really cheaply at the moment. We could snap one of them up.”
“It might be a good investment, yeah. Penthouse?”
“That’s what I was thinking. As long as it has two bedrooms.”
“Hell yes. I’m not sleeping with you. And I want my own ensuite.”
“Always so picky.”
“You love it.”
“You keep thinking that.”
*
Rating: PG
Summary: She woke up when the sunlight was bright in the room, and Helo watched as her eyes fluttered open. Helo, Sharon, Anders, Kara (and Lee), during The Farm. Spoilers to there.
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters at all!
A/N: With thanks to pen and wisteria.
*
A Girl To Follow Around
“So, welcome to Caprica.”
“It doesn’t feel like home.”
“Give it some time. You’ll come around.”
*
When Kara went missing, Helo wasn't worried. At least, he wasn't worried like Anders was worried, and as he watched the man snap out orders, pace around the truck like it could tell him where she was, he told him to calm down.
She was Starbuck. She'd be fine, because that was written into his code of life somewhere - he believed in it like he'd once believed in the Picon Pirates for the Pyramid Cup, the healing power of ambrosia, and that his mother's chocolate cookies could make anything better.
It wasn't until they had searched everywhere at least twice for her that the first twinges of worry started, and then Sharon appeared, and for a moment, he forgot everything else.
That made him feel slightly bad, later.
*
“How many anti-radiation meds do we have?”
“Seven each.”
“So, a week.”
“Karl. Don’t worry about it. We’ll be fine. Do you have cards?”
“Triad doesn’t work with two people.”
“You just don’t want to lose your hard earned - actually, do you have anything worth losing?”
“My clothes?”
“Oh, gods, please keep them on!”
*
The rescue went perfectly, which was surprising. He couldn’t remember the last time that happened. It made him feel uneasy, like someone else was holding the royal flush and was waiting for the pot to be large enough before taking it.
He shrugged the feeling off as Kara whimpered, and looked down at where she was clutching at her side as they all but dragged her across to the heavy Raider.
“Not much further,” he told her. “You’ll be fine.”
“Frakking hurts,” she spat back at him and Helo saw Anders grin ever so slightly as he tightened his grip across her shoulders. “Frakking Cylons and their stupid frakking - ” and she trailed off into another hiss of pain.
Sharon was standing at the top of the ramp, herding people onto the ship, and Helo knew the exact moment Kara saw her because she flinched, tried to stop moving, but he and Anders were far too strong and they had been almost carrying her anyway. The minute they stepped onto Cylon transport itself, Sharon grabbed his arm and Helo left Kara - who was still resisting, even as the doors were closing - with Anders and followed Sharon to the controls. She was already barking orders at him, just like when he was her ECO, and he was far too busy for the next fifteen minutes to think about anything other than keeping as low as possible to the tree line and not crashing.
*
“Water bottles."
"Already down."
"Batteries."
"Okay. The Sharon on Galactica - “
“No.”
“Kara - “
“Drop it, Karl. And put ambrosia on the list.”
*
They were tucked into a corner, the rest of the Resistance pouring off the ship around them. Kara was lying stretched out, head on Anders’ lap, face tucked in under her jacket, hospital robe and feet dusty against the cold metal floor. Anders had both hands braced against the walls of the corner, still trying to absorb as much of the vibration and movement of the Raider as he could and as Helo approached, he looked up, shook his head.
Shit, Helo thought, and bobbed down beside her, placed his hand carefully on her shoulder. No movement. “Kara?”
There was a tiny flinch underneath his hand.
“Kara, we’re here. We need to get you off this plane.”
There was no response to that, and he waited and waited until it was obvious she wasn’t moving, and then did the only thing he could think of. “Lieutenant Thrace,” he snapped, and she jerked, made the first effort to sit up and when she looked at him, there was at least some emotion in her eyes, instead of the horrible blankness he’d seen for a moment when he’d left her in Anders’ arms, Sharon pulling him away to the controls.
She reached for him, almost instinctively, and then stopped just as Helo heard light footsteps behind him. Her face grew hard, cold. “Someone better explain why that’s here.”
There was a paralysed silence, and Helo felt Sharon’s hand warm on his shoulder. He started to explain; the theft of the heavy Raider, Sharon helping plan the attack - but then Kara shook her head, cut him off. “I don’t care anymore,” she whispered, hand pressing into her side, and Helo looked from her to Anders and saw the same worry reflected there.
“We need to get you out and lying down,” Anders said quietly, brushing his hand though her hair. “Kara?”
“Okay. Okay.” She didn’t move, and it ended up taking both of them to get her to her feet. She threw Helo one short, sharp look and then leaned into Anders, letting him take her weight as she hobbled out of the plane, and Sharon let out a long sigh beside him.
“She’ll come around,” Helo said softly. Sharon snorted.
“She hates me.”
“I don’t think she knows that you saved her.”
Sharon shrugged. “I don’t know that she’ll care.”
“Sharon. It will be fine. She’s just injured and hurt - “
“You don’t need to defend her, Helo. I understand more than you know.”
Helo fell silent, and Sharon slipped her hand through his arm as they left the Raider, followed Kara and Anders into the Base and down to the make-shift hospital deep within the school.
Kara didn’t turn around once, Helo noticed. It was like they didn’t exist.
*
"Can you stop doing that?"
"What?"
"Talking about her like that."
"Oh, I'm so sorry, Helo. I didn't realise that her stealing my Raider was supposed to endear her to me."
"We wouldn't have fit."
"We would have. Just."
"What, three people?"
"Two."
"Go back to sleep."
"Fine."
*
“She needs a shower.”
They were standing, watching Kara through a crack in the door and Helo looked up at the man standing beside him.
“Are you sure? I think it’s just her legs that are dusty - "
“She smells like hospital disinfectant,” Anders said abruptly.
At Helo’s look of confusion, he shifted awkwardly, stuffed his hands in his pockets.
“Have you ever spent much time in a hospital? It sticks to you, that smell. You can’t get it off you. I don’t want her - " Anders trailed off, glanced back through the door to where Kara was lying, not moving but not asleep, on Anders’ bunk.
Helo nodded slowly. “Okay. I’ll see if I can get some soap - "
“I’ve done that already,” Anders said, throwing Helo a small, sweet scented package. Vanilla.
“How did you get this?”
“Traded.” Anders shrugged. “There’s not much of it left, but I don’t want her waking up smelling that.”
“Okay. Where are the bathrooms?”
“There’s one just down the corridor.”
“Did you need - "
“I can handle it,” Anders answered quietly, and Helo wondered.
*
“Caprica doesn’t smell right.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s no - no humanity. That sounds stupid, but there’s just - nothing. It’s just trees and dust and nothing else...”
“I hadn’t noticed. But then, I’ve been here a while.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault.”
“You haven’t missed much. We’ve just been running from Cylons. And blowing things up.”
“Oh, just the usual post-apocalypse routine?”
“Yeah. Nothing you haven’t seen before.”
*
Helo brought Anders coffee at some point after midnight. The man was sitting slumped over in a chair next to the bunk, and he only looked up when Helo waved the cup under his nose. Took it with such gratitude that Helo clapped him on the shoulder before sitting down on the edge of Kara’s bed, tucking the blanket up around her shoulders.
“How is she?” he said, studying her face - the bruises under her eyes, the way that even deep in sleep, her face hadn’t relaxed.
Anders shrugged. “She hasn’t woken up since you were here last time. She’s been dreaming, though - I didn’t know whether to wake her.”
“She’ll wake herself up if they are bad enough.”
“Oh,” Anders said, and fiddled with his coffee cup. "She called out for someone. While she was sleeping."
"Who?"
"A Lee? I think?"
Oh, Helo thought, and looked down at the sleeping Kara, brushed back a piece of her hair. She shifted a little. "Yeah, that would make sense."
"Who is he?"
Helo shrugged. "One of her best friends, I think."
"Just a friend?"
"I don't know," he answered honestly. "He'd only just arrived on the Galactica before I ended up here.”
“So she knew him before.”
“For a while. But they weren't anything more before that."
Anders studied him a moment, and then nodded. "Okay," he said, finally. "Thanks for the coffee."
"No problem."
*
“Tell me something funny that happened on the Galactica while I was gone.”
“Something funny?”
“Something funny. As in, humorous. Makes you laugh.”
“I know what the word means, Helo. I’m just trying to think.”
“That hard?”
“Things haven’t exactly been great for us either. Then again, I didn’t have a Cylon love-bunny to make things easier for me.”
“No, I’m sure you were just off frakking - what was his name? Lee?”
“Frak you.”
*
Kara had a nightmare just before the sky was due to start lightening, and Helo jerked upright in his chair as she cried out, kicking at something. Anders was already sitting on the edge of her bed, leaning over her, running his hand through her hair, gentle soothing strokes.
“You were dead,” Kara whispered, and Helo could see her clenching her jaw against tears. “Sam. He told me you were dead.”
“Shh.” Anders pulled her into his arms, and Helo watched as Kara tucked herself up into the man, looking smaller and more vulnerable than he’d ever seen her, her face white and tears shining on her lashes. “It’s okay. It’s okay, I’m fine.”
Kara cried then, sobs that shook her whole body and Anders kissed the top of her head, looked up at Helo and jerked his head towards the door.
Helo took the hint, and shut the door as slowly as he could; watched though the crack as Anders wrapped his arms around her tightly, saying things that Helo couldn’t hear into her ear.
Sharon was standing outside, like she’d been waiting, and Helo wondered for a moment why he wasn’t surprised.
“How is she?” Sharon asked, and Helo shrugged.
“Not so good.”
Sharon nodded. “She’ll be fine. She always is.”
“Of course,” Helo answered confidently, but he thought of Kara’s body shaking, the scar on her abdomen, the way she shrunk back from anyone’s touch, and hoped desperately that Sharon was right.
*
“I had dinner there once."
"Yeah?"
"Pasta. It wasn't very good."
"What happened to your knee?”
“Oh, you know. The usual. Ejected over a moon and got dragged by the parachute. I think I hit a rock.”
“Impressive.”
“I hotwired a Raider. Do you have any idea how bad they smell?”
“You would have been a perfect match then.”
A laugh. “Gods, I’ve missed you.”
“Me too.”
*
The sun rose, and Helo made Anders get at least an hour of sleep. The man almost staggered the three steps to Kara’s bunk - Kara was in his - and Helo was sure he was unconscious before his head hit the pillow.
Helo sank into the chair next to Kara’s bed and watched her sleep, counted the bruises on her face.
Half an hour later, Sharon slipped in beside him, slid her fingers into his hand.
“I wish that hadn’t happened to her,” she said, and Helo didn’t ask why.
*
“Do you love her?”
“Yes.”
“She was my friend.”
“She still is. This is Sharon.”
“I never knew this one.”
*
She woke up when the sunlight was bright in the room, and Helo watched as her eyes fluttered open.
“Hey,” he said softly, and she looked at him a moment before she shifted over, making space for him next to her. He moved across and sat beside her. “How are you?”
“I’m fine.”
Helo laughed. “You’d say that anyway,” he told her affectionately, and brushed her hair back from her eyes. She smiled. It was faint, but it was there and Helo grinned back. “I was worried about you.”
“You shouldn’t have been. I was fine.”
Yeah, Helo thought. You were only shot, help captive by Cylons, operated on and the gods know what else. You were fine. He shook his head, turned the hand of hers not under the covers over and wrapped his fingers through hers. “Are you really okay?”
Her face crumpled just a little, and Helo knew her well enough to recognise the cloud of things she wasn’t telling him hovering in her eyes. Then she took a deep breath, nodded, and gave him a smile. It was bright, sharp at the edges.
“I killed one of those blonde bitches with a fire extinguisher.”
“Very resourceful of you.”
“I thought so.”
He smiled, squeezed her hand and she bit at her bottom lip for a moment. “Thanks,” she said finally. “I needed you.”
“Any time,” Helo replied honestly, and she smiled back. “Ready to go home?”
“Frak yes.”
He laughed.
*
“What have you missed the most?”
“Coffee.”
“Wrong. The correct answer was me, of course.”
“Oh, you think you’re so funny.”
“You know it. Seriously, though - "
“Probably flying. I know I’m not like you, Kara, but I do miss it.”
“Yeah.”
“We’ll get back. And then you can show off on CAP and I’ll tell you when you screwed up.”
“Deal.”
*
Helo tried not to watch Kara say goodbye to Anders. He held Sharon close instead, wrapped his arms around her and was guiltily glad for once it wasn’t him losing someone he cared about.
"He was a good guy," he told Kara, when they were up in the air and they couldn’t have seen the high school if there had been windows in the heavy Raider. Kara looked at him, her eyes burning.
"He is a good guy," she corrected icily, and Helo watched as she fumbled at the catch on her chain, replacing it around her neck. One dog tag was missing, and he could tell even from meters away that her fingers were shaking.
"He is." He crossed to her side, put an arm around her shoulders and after a moment she leaned into him, let her head drop onto his shoulder. "He'll be fine."
"He better be." She looked up at him, gave him a crooked smile. "I want that tag back."
Helo smiled, gave her a light squeeze. She was going to be okay.
*
“We’re going to be okay, right? Make it back to Galactica?”
“Sure.”
“Just checking.”
“Besides, if we don’t, I’m pretty sure some of the best apartments on the Aegean Peninsular are going really cheaply at the moment. We could snap one of them up.”
“It might be a good investment, yeah. Penthouse?”
“That’s what I was thinking. As long as it has two bedrooms.”
“Hell yes. I’m not sleeping with you. And I want my own ensuite.”
“Always so picky.”
“You love it.”
“You keep thinking that.”
*