Fic: Descant (chapter 4)
Jan. 24th, 2012 06:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
embolaliaTitle: Descant (Chapter 4)
Rating: R
Characters: Kara/Leoben, Laura, Caprica, Boomer, & more
Word Count (this chapter): 2,485
WARNINGS: Non-canon character death. Canon-level violence and themes.
A/N: This is an AU that begins as the Cylons reach New Caprica and before Leoben imprisons Kara, so for those of you whose aversion to Kara/Leoben begins with the canon dollhouse, I hope you'll try this out.
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
“What?” Kara snaps incredulously as Leoben pulls her with him into the hall. “Where are we going?”
“They outvoted us,” Boomer says, dispirited.
“You’re kidding.” Kara gets in front of her. “Seriously? That wasn’t even a vote! There are millions of Cylons--”
“That’s not how it works,” Caprica cuts her off, her voice crisp and clear. “We vote by model. Every two votes with the twos,” she nods to Leoben. “Every six with me.”
Kara shakes her head. “But you’re different.” She narrows her eyes at Leoben. “Aren’t you?”
All three of them stare at each other uncertainly.
“God has shaped our lives,” Leoben says finally. “My experiences have differed from my brothers’. But they are still my brothers.”
Caprica nods in gratitude for the explanation.
Kara’s eyes flare at the strangeness of it, and she starts to move, heading away from the meeting chamber. Leoben takes her arm gently after a few yards, steers her into a smaller room.
“So what are we going to do?” Kara asks once the door is closed.
“Back on Caprica,” Caprica says.“We had to convince them. We had to earn their belief.”
“And how did you do it then?” Kara demands.
Boomer shakes her head. "They never believed what we believed.” She glares at Caprica as the other woman opens her mouth. “Their reaction in there? They’re happy with things like they are. They never wanted peace.”
Caprica looks sad for a moment, almost scared.
“It’ll be alright,” Leoben says, with such sureness that all three women turn to him.
“What are we going to do?" Caprica asks.
Kara grins. "This." She lays out the plan: the twos, sixes and eights will help free Tigh and Laura and the rest of the prisoners. Then together they'll take control of the Fleet vessels on the ground and break through the jamming to contact Galactica. Boomer and Caprica nod as she talks it out. Leoben just watches, eyes glowing.
"But before that, once our people are free, you destroy the resurrection ships," Kara finishes, watching them closely. As shock crosses Caprica's face, she plunges on. "My people out there are right about one thing--if your enemy will come back every time, there's no point fighting. Cavil and the others--they'll never be willing to live in peace with us. They're either dead or attacking. I'd rather they be dead."
Caprica is watching Leoben desperately. "They're still our brothers and sisters," she says. "Changing the Plan is one thing, but exterminating them? Is this what you've seen? Is this what God wants from us?"
Kara watches his face as he blinks, glances at her. "I've seen peace," he finally says. "And that Kara will lead us." He looks at her again, nodding in faith.
Caprica sighs. "Alright," she whispers.
Kara raises an eyebrow. "Rook?"
Boomer grins, a hint of her former self returning. "Time to kick some Cylon ass, sir."
Leoben surveys them, nods. "We should wait until nightfall to begin releasing the prisoners. Caprica and Boomer, notify the others to be ready." The two Cylon women accept the instruction and head toward the door. Caprica's face is still creased with anxiety.
“Caprica?” Kara spits out angrily.
The blond woman stops, meeting her eyes hesitantly. “I didn’t choose it. The others...they think I’m different because I helped with the attacks.”
Kara stares at her, rage building in her chest. But she recognizes the woman’s expression: she’s consumed by guilt, by doing penance. It’s something she knows well. With a final glare, she turns back to Leoben. "And us?"
He steps closer to her. "Cavil and the others know your face now. You can't move until night, either."
"And until then?"
His fingers wrap around her side, pressing lightly over her bandages. Kara winces. "You need to rest. So you'll be ready."
With a snort, she assents.
Leoben slips behind her, rests his hands on her shoulders and slides them slowly downward, tugging Kara's wrists behind her back once more. Kara feels every inch of the caress, remembers his arms around her, before Sam died, before all of this. "This way," Leoben murmurs, and pushes her toward the hall.
*
Caprica and Boomer stand before the console, staring down into the gel that will let them speak to all their other sisters. Boomer reaches out, but Caprica snatches at her wrist. “Are you sure?”
Boomer pulls away, fire in her eyes for the first time in months. “Tyrol died so we could have peace. I owe him this.”
Caprica’s lips thin as she presses them together.
Her sister squeezes her arm for a moment. “We’ll get Gaius out.”
“And the others? All of them, out on the resurrection ships...they’ll be dead. Forever.”
Boomer stares down into the console. “When I was human,” she says softly, “when I thought I was human, I tried to kill myself once.” She meets Caprica’s eyes. “Scripture tells us we’ll travel beyond the veil, closer to God, closer to eternal love. Don’t you want to be transformed like that?” Her voice is earnest.
Caprica’s face creases in worry. “Sharon,” she begins, but Boomer has sunk her hand into the ooze, is beyond reach. Caprica eases her own hand in as well, opens her heart to her sisters, lets them feel her love, lets them know what they’ll be dying for.
*
While Kara sleeps, Leoben wanders their apartment, running his fingers over the picture frames, the couch cushions. This will never be their home now, at least not until the war is over.
She begins to toss and turn behind him and he settles himself on the couch, rests his head in his hands, and reaches out. The content of her dream makes him ache: her mother is chasing her, furious. In his visions Socrata is a tool, but to Kara she’s a monster. In this dream Kara is an adult, but still terrified. Leoben reaches out to her, snatches her hand and pulls Kara through a secret passage, into the apartment with him, holds her close. She's suddenly a child in his arms, her hair raggedy and her cheeks streaked with tears. Leoben rubs her back as she clings to him, small scarred hands clutching his chest. Slowly she fades away.
He opens his eyes. Across the apartment Kara is sitting up in bed, staring at him.
Leoben looks out the window at the setting sun. "It's time," he says.
*
Sixes and eights and twos move purposefully through the halls, unlocking doors and freeing prisoners. Threes and fours and fives are scattered in corners where they’ve been dragged, their necks snapped silently from behind. Kara nods approval as Boomer directs them, commanding the movements of her troops. She falls in; this is the mission she’s been waiting for for months.
Kara’s unprepared for it when it happens: she glances up and down the hall and turns a key in a lock, and there is Saul Tigh. His face is streaked with blood, his nose badly broken. As she enters he twists, eyes flaring wide as he shifts his weight and grimaces in pain. "It's alright," she gasps, crouching, holding out her hands. "It's Starbuck." With a nod, she shifts, becomes Starbuck, becomes hard enough not to react. "Can you walk?"
Tigh's vision blinks clear. "You shouldn't have come. If they catch you--"
"It's alright," she repeats. "Some of them are on our side. Come with me." She slides an arm around his waist, levers Tigh up off the floor, tries not to think about how easily she can support his weight.
"Starbuck!" Tigh protests. Her eyes snap to the doorway.
Leoben is standing there, hands raised, non-threatening.
She squeezes Tigh's arm. "He's helping us," she says.
Tigh begins to pull away, to struggle, to protest louder and louder despite Kara's heated shushings.
"Colonel," Roslin suddenly snaps from beyond Leoben. "Get your ass in gear." She moves onward, supporting a former member of the quorum.
As Kara helps Tigh ease his way from the room, giving Leoben a wide berth, she sees his bloodied and blackened fingertips , the dried rivulets of blood staining Tigh’s clothes. She grits her teeth and pushes onward.
Once Tigh's been passed on to Doc Cottle's care, she and Leoben turn back toward the prison again. Kara's wounds are aching but she needs to see for herself that all the humans are free. They creep through the darkness, staying out of sight of any watching Centurions as best they can.
Kara stops suddenly in the middle of the no-man's-land, remembering.
"What is it?" Leoben asks softly.
It's still vivid in her mind: the way his body thrashed as he was held underwater, the way he groaned as she hit him, over and over. "I'm sorry," she gasps.
Leoben frowns. "Kara?"
"I'm sorry I tortured you."
He smiles in the moonlight, leans close enough to whisper in her ear. "Don't forget--I let you."
Kara rests her forehead against his shoulder. "Still..."
Leoben presses his lips to her temple. "I love you, Kara."
She pulls away and walks on.
*
The night passes, and he watches from the banks, an observer. Kara and the others scurry about, releasing more prisoners and slipping them out of the facility. Destiny guides Kara’s hand, invisible to her but not to him.
Once they're all free and gathered in an abandoned basement, Kara pulls Roslin and Tigh aside. Tigh's eyes are still flashing with violence every time he glances at Leoben. Kara hisses and rants about war and alliance and annihilation until she finally seems to gain a grumbling assent from the others.
He watches the other ripples in the stream, too, feels from a great distance how his brothers are dying, how the resurrection ships are winking out of existence one by one across the galaxy. As each flickers out, the sudden vanishing of one star in the sky, the twisting future closes in, becoming suddenly finite. Fear rises in Leoben briefly: he will have only one life to spend for her, now.
Kara stalks toward him and passes him, heading toward the door. "Come on," she tosses off with a grunt. He follows.
As they walk the dark streets, spotlights suddenly begin to move over the city: the absence of the prisoners has been noticed.
"They have no attention for us right now," Leoben murmurs. "Not while our people are attacking elsewhere."
Kara pauses to scan the area, checking that no one else is on the street. Then she tilts her head, moves away from the settlement.
They stop a ways away. The night air is cool and crisp; there's a light scent of fall, of decay. Kara turns with her hands on her hips.
"Tell me this is the right thing to do."
He pauses. "It is what you were born to do."
Her face hardens. "People are going to die," Kara murmurs, staring back toward the camp. "More people."
Leoben nods. "My people are already dying."
Kara bites her lip.
"There is no other way," he adds. "Wars must be fought until they end."
"Yeah," she says. "Yeah."
Leoben reaches out then, resting his hands on either side of her face, thumbs stroking as Kara smiles hesitantly at him. Her eyes drop to his lips for just a moment, darkening, and it's the only signal he needs. He kisses her, strong and sure. Kara presses close, her mouth opening under his. He can feel whole ships dying as quickly as falling stars and he needs to be alive, needs this woman like he's never needed anything before.
Kara is eager in his arms, pulling off his clothing as quickly as the buckles and zippers will allow. Leoben can barely restrain himself enough to be careful of Kara's injuries from the bombing. Their mouths and hands are ravenous, obliterating the distinction between human and Cylon.
Finally they're naked, Leoben hovering over Kara, his fingers stroking roughly inside of her as she whimpers, clutching at his arms. "Please," Kara gasps. "Gods, Leoben--"
And then he is inside her, and the stream sings through him all at once and he cannot watch, cannot keep any distance at all. As he moves, as she moves with him, Leoben can feel his soul twining with Kara’s, caught up in a current, hurtling toward pleasure, and life, and death.
*
Spotlights play over the tents as a lone figure strides through the camp, opening tent flaps and peering inside. D’Anna seethes with annoyance. She should never have listened to the crone, but time is running out now, she can feel it. She can’t wait for another vision.
*
Kara wakes, cold, and presses closer against the warm body beside her. Leoben is sitting up, his arms wrapped around his knees, staring broodingly up at the sky. She sits up behind him, wraps her arms around his waist. His body is radiating heat.
"It's not very efficient of you, you know," she muses. "If you really wanted to improve on human physiology you wouldn't waste energy heating the whole night like this."
Leoben sighs, his back shifting against Kara's breasts. "They’re almost gone. My brothers are fighting to destroy the last resurrection ships even now."
Kara withdraws, staying silent, and Leoben twists to see her. "You'll be just a man," she says, her voice trembling faintly. Kara reaches for her shirt. Leoben catches her wrist.
"Not just," he says firmly. "I stand beside the stream, Kara. I know the face of God."
"The Gods," she corrects stubbornly, but without real force.
"Does it matter?"
She glares. Moonlight reflects off the planes of her face.
"Aren't you going to ask what God looks like, Kara?" Leoben asks, his eyes teasing.
Kara frowns.
Leoben tilts her chin up with one hand, leans close enough that she can feel his breath on her lips."God is love," he murmurs.
She snorts faintly, then looks away. When Kara speaks her voice is weak. "You're going to die." She is a woman who has burned or buried two men already, who has lost a third to the darkness of space. She wraps her arms around herself.
Leoben nods slowly. "I have a lot left to do first. So do you." He reaches out and strokes her hair, watches as Kara's face contorts, as she gives in to comfort, for just a moment.
Her eyes flare open, she stares straight into him. Leoben's breath catches in his chest: she isn't saying the words, but she means it. Kara leans forward and kisses him, softly, slowly. Leoben wraps her close in his arms. They stay like that, curled together, a long time.
*
Someone begins to scream.
Chapter 5
Rating: R
Characters: Kara/Leoben, Laura, Caprica, Boomer, & more
Word Count (this chapter): 2,485
WARNINGS: Non-canon character death. Canon-level violence and themes.
A/N: This is an AU that begins as the Cylons reach New Caprica and before Leoben imprisons Kara, so for those of you whose aversion to Kara/Leoben begins with the canon dollhouse, I hope you'll try this out.
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
“What?” Kara snaps incredulously as Leoben pulls her with him into the hall. “Where are we going?”
“They outvoted us,” Boomer says, dispirited.
“You’re kidding.” Kara gets in front of her. “Seriously? That wasn’t even a vote! There are millions of Cylons--”
“That’s not how it works,” Caprica cuts her off, her voice crisp and clear. “We vote by model. Every two votes with the twos,” she nods to Leoben. “Every six with me.”
Kara shakes her head. “But you’re different.” She narrows her eyes at Leoben. “Aren’t you?”
All three of them stare at each other uncertainly.
“God has shaped our lives,” Leoben says finally. “My experiences have differed from my brothers’. But they are still my brothers.”
Caprica nods in gratitude for the explanation.
Kara’s eyes flare at the strangeness of it, and she starts to move, heading away from the meeting chamber. Leoben takes her arm gently after a few yards, steers her into a smaller room.
“So what are we going to do?” Kara asks once the door is closed.
“Back on Caprica,” Caprica says.“We had to convince them. We had to earn their belief.”
“And how did you do it then?” Kara demands.
Boomer shakes her head. "They never believed what we believed.” She glares at Caprica as the other woman opens her mouth. “Their reaction in there? They’re happy with things like they are. They never wanted peace.”
Caprica looks sad for a moment, almost scared.
“It’ll be alright,” Leoben says, with such sureness that all three women turn to him.
“What are we going to do?" Caprica asks.
Kara grins. "This." She lays out the plan: the twos, sixes and eights will help free Tigh and Laura and the rest of the prisoners. Then together they'll take control of the Fleet vessels on the ground and break through the jamming to contact Galactica. Boomer and Caprica nod as she talks it out. Leoben just watches, eyes glowing.
"But before that, once our people are free, you destroy the resurrection ships," Kara finishes, watching them closely. As shock crosses Caprica's face, she plunges on. "My people out there are right about one thing--if your enemy will come back every time, there's no point fighting. Cavil and the others--they'll never be willing to live in peace with us. They're either dead or attacking. I'd rather they be dead."
Caprica is watching Leoben desperately. "They're still our brothers and sisters," she says. "Changing the Plan is one thing, but exterminating them? Is this what you've seen? Is this what God wants from us?"
Kara watches his face as he blinks, glances at her. "I've seen peace," he finally says. "And that Kara will lead us." He looks at her again, nodding in faith.
Caprica sighs. "Alright," she whispers.
Kara raises an eyebrow. "Rook?"
Boomer grins, a hint of her former self returning. "Time to kick some Cylon ass, sir."
Leoben surveys them, nods. "We should wait until nightfall to begin releasing the prisoners. Caprica and Boomer, notify the others to be ready." The two Cylon women accept the instruction and head toward the door. Caprica's face is still creased with anxiety.
“Caprica?” Kara spits out angrily.
The blond woman stops, meeting her eyes hesitantly. “I didn’t choose it. The others...they think I’m different because I helped with the attacks.”
Kara stares at her, rage building in her chest. But she recognizes the woman’s expression: she’s consumed by guilt, by doing penance. It’s something she knows well. With a final glare, she turns back to Leoben. "And us?"
He steps closer to her. "Cavil and the others know your face now. You can't move until night, either."
"And until then?"
His fingers wrap around her side, pressing lightly over her bandages. Kara winces. "You need to rest. So you'll be ready."
With a snort, she assents.
Leoben slips behind her, rests his hands on her shoulders and slides them slowly downward, tugging Kara's wrists behind her back once more. Kara feels every inch of the caress, remembers his arms around her, before Sam died, before all of this. "This way," Leoben murmurs, and pushes her toward the hall.
*
Caprica and Boomer stand before the console, staring down into the gel that will let them speak to all their other sisters. Boomer reaches out, but Caprica snatches at her wrist. “Are you sure?”
Boomer pulls away, fire in her eyes for the first time in months. “Tyrol died so we could have peace. I owe him this.”
Caprica’s lips thin as she presses them together.
Her sister squeezes her arm for a moment. “We’ll get Gaius out.”
“And the others? All of them, out on the resurrection ships...they’ll be dead. Forever.”
Boomer stares down into the console. “When I was human,” she says softly, “when I thought I was human, I tried to kill myself once.” She meets Caprica’s eyes. “Scripture tells us we’ll travel beyond the veil, closer to God, closer to eternal love. Don’t you want to be transformed like that?” Her voice is earnest.
Caprica’s face creases in worry. “Sharon,” she begins, but Boomer has sunk her hand into the ooze, is beyond reach. Caprica eases her own hand in as well, opens her heart to her sisters, lets them feel her love, lets them know what they’ll be dying for.
*
While Kara sleeps, Leoben wanders their apartment, running his fingers over the picture frames, the couch cushions. This will never be their home now, at least not until the war is over.
She begins to toss and turn behind him and he settles himself on the couch, rests his head in his hands, and reaches out. The content of her dream makes him ache: her mother is chasing her, furious. In his visions Socrata is a tool, but to Kara she’s a monster. In this dream Kara is an adult, but still terrified. Leoben reaches out to her, snatches her hand and pulls Kara through a secret passage, into the apartment with him, holds her close. She's suddenly a child in his arms, her hair raggedy and her cheeks streaked with tears. Leoben rubs her back as she clings to him, small scarred hands clutching his chest. Slowly she fades away.
He opens his eyes. Across the apartment Kara is sitting up in bed, staring at him.
Leoben looks out the window at the setting sun. "It's time," he says.
*
Sixes and eights and twos move purposefully through the halls, unlocking doors and freeing prisoners. Threes and fours and fives are scattered in corners where they’ve been dragged, their necks snapped silently from behind. Kara nods approval as Boomer directs them, commanding the movements of her troops. She falls in; this is the mission she’s been waiting for for months.
Kara’s unprepared for it when it happens: she glances up and down the hall and turns a key in a lock, and there is Saul Tigh. His face is streaked with blood, his nose badly broken. As she enters he twists, eyes flaring wide as he shifts his weight and grimaces in pain. "It's alright," she gasps, crouching, holding out her hands. "It's Starbuck." With a nod, she shifts, becomes Starbuck, becomes hard enough not to react. "Can you walk?"
Tigh's vision blinks clear. "You shouldn't have come. If they catch you--"
"It's alright," she repeats. "Some of them are on our side. Come with me." She slides an arm around his waist, levers Tigh up off the floor, tries not to think about how easily she can support his weight.
"Starbuck!" Tigh protests. Her eyes snap to the doorway.
Leoben is standing there, hands raised, non-threatening.
She squeezes Tigh's arm. "He's helping us," she says.
Tigh begins to pull away, to struggle, to protest louder and louder despite Kara's heated shushings.
"Colonel," Roslin suddenly snaps from beyond Leoben. "Get your ass in gear." She moves onward, supporting a former member of the quorum.
As Kara helps Tigh ease his way from the room, giving Leoben a wide berth, she sees his bloodied and blackened fingertips , the dried rivulets of blood staining Tigh’s clothes. She grits her teeth and pushes onward.
Once Tigh's been passed on to Doc Cottle's care, she and Leoben turn back toward the prison again. Kara's wounds are aching but she needs to see for herself that all the humans are free. They creep through the darkness, staying out of sight of any watching Centurions as best they can.
Kara stops suddenly in the middle of the no-man's-land, remembering.
"What is it?" Leoben asks softly.
It's still vivid in her mind: the way his body thrashed as he was held underwater, the way he groaned as she hit him, over and over. "I'm sorry," she gasps.
Leoben frowns. "Kara?"
"I'm sorry I tortured you."
He smiles in the moonlight, leans close enough to whisper in her ear. "Don't forget--I let you."
Kara rests her forehead against his shoulder. "Still..."
Leoben presses his lips to her temple. "I love you, Kara."
She pulls away and walks on.
*
The night passes, and he watches from the banks, an observer. Kara and the others scurry about, releasing more prisoners and slipping them out of the facility. Destiny guides Kara’s hand, invisible to her but not to him.
Once they're all free and gathered in an abandoned basement, Kara pulls Roslin and Tigh aside. Tigh's eyes are still flashing with violence every time he glances at Leoben. Kara hisses and rants about war and alliance and annihilation until she finally seems to gain a grumbling assent from the others.
He watches the other ripples in the stream, too, feels from a great distance how his brothers are dying, how the resurrection ships are winking out of existence one by one across the galaxy. As each flickers out, the sudden vanishing of one star in the sky, the twisting future closes in, becoming suddenly finite. Fear rises in Leoben briefly: he will have only one life to spend for her, now.
Kara stalks toward him and passes him, heading toward the door. "Come on," she tosses off with a grunt. He follows.
As they walk the dark streets, spotlights suddenly begin to move over the city: the absence of the prisoners has been noticed.
"They have no attention for us right now," Leoben murmurs. "Not while our people are attacking elsewhere."
Kara pauses to scan the area, checking that no one else is on the street. Then she tilts her head, moves away from the settlement.
They stop a ways away. The night air is cool and crisp; there's a light scent of fall, of decay. Kara turns with her hands on her hips.
"Tell me this is the right thing to do."
He pauses. "It is what you were born to do."
Her face hardens. "People are going to die," Kara murmurs, staring back toward the camp. "More people."
Leoben nods. "My people are already dying."
Kara bites her lip.
"There is no other way," he adds. "Wars must be fought until they end."
"Yeah," she says. "Yeah."
Leoben reaches out then, resting his hands on either side of her face, thumbs stroking as Kara smiles hesitantly at him. Her eyes drop to his lips for just a moment, darkening, and it's the only signal he needs. He kisses her, strong and sure. Kara presses close, her mouth opening under his. He can feel whole ships dying as quickly as falling stars and he needs to be alive, needs this woman like he's never needed anything before.
Kara is eager in his arms, pulling off his clothing as quickly as the buckles and zippers will allow. Leoben can barely restrain himself enough to be careful of Kara's injuries from the bombing. Their mouths and hands are ravenous, obliterating the distinction between human and Cylon.
Finally they're naked, Leoben hovering over Kara, his fingers stroking roughly inside of her as she whimpers, clutching at his arms. "Please," Kara gasps. "Gods, Leoben--"
And then he is inside her, and the stream sings through him all at once and he cannot watch, cannot keep any distance at all. As he moves, as she moves with him, Leoben can feel his soul twining with Kara’s, caught up in a current, hurtling toward pleasure, and life, and death.
*
Spotlights play over the tents as a lone figure strides through the camp, opening tent flaps and peering inside. D’Anna seethes with annoyance. She should never have listened to the crone, but time is running out now, she can feel it. She can’t wait for another vision.
*
Kara wakes, cold, and presses closer against the warm body beside her. Leoben is sitting up, his arms wrapped around his knees, staring broodingly up at the sky. She sits up behind him, wraps her arms around his waist. His body is radiating heat.
"It's not very efficient of you, you know," she muses. "If you really wanted to improve on human physiology you wouldn't waste energy heating the whole night like this."
Leoben sighs, his back shifting against Kara's breasts. "They’re almost gone. My brothers are fighting to destroy the last resurrection ships even now."
Kara withdraws, staying silent, and Leoben twists to see her. "You'll be just a man," she says, her voice trembling faintly. Kara reaches for her shirt. Leoben catches her wrist.
"Not just," he says firmly. "I stand beside the stream, Kara. I know the face of God."
"The Gods," she corrects stubbornly, but without real force.
"Does it matter?"
She glares. Moonlight reflects off the planes of her face.
"Aren't you going to ask what God looks like, Kara?" Leoben asks, his eyes teasing.
Kara frowns.
Leoben tilts her chin up with one hand, leans close enough that she can feel his breath on her lips."God is love," he murmurs.
She snorts faintly, then looks away. When Kara speaks her voice is weak. "You're going to die." She is a woman who has burned or buried two men already, who has lost a third to the darkness of space. She wraps her arms around herself.
Leoben nods slowly. "I have a lot left to do first. So do you." He reaches out and strokes her hair, watches as Kara's face contorts, as she gives in to comfort, for just a moment.
Her eyes flare open, she stares straight into him. Leoben's breath catches in his chest: she isn't saying the words, but she means it. Kara leans forward and kisses him, softly, slowly. Leoben wraps her close in his arms. They stay like that, curled together, a long time.
*
Someone begins to scream.
Chapter 5
