Fic: Descant (chapter 11B)
Feb. 7th, 2012 09:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
embolaliaTitle: Descant (Chapter 11B)
Rating: R
Characters: Kara/Leoben, Helo, Caprica, Hera, & more
Word Count (this chapter): 1,787
WARNINGS: Non-canon character death. Canon-level violence and themes of suicide.
Chapter 11A
Chapter 11B
Kara hums to herself, smiling, as her Viper rises through the layers of cloud: blue, then red, then gold--and suddenly Galactica is in sight. His words are fading now, dream-like in memory, but she can still feel his love wrapping around her, holding her close.
“Starbuck?” Gaeta’s voice breaks excitedly over the comm.
“Permission to land,” she sings out.
“Granted.”
Kara takes a deep breath and slides open the canopy of her Viper. She unbuckles, pops her helmet, and stands, reaching for the railing of the ladder.
“Starbuck,” Adama says, staring up at her. He looks stunned.
She scrambles down the steps and he’s hugging her, holding onto her. Kara relaxes into him, rubbing his back. “It’s okay,” she says. “It’s me.”
“Kara?”
She turns and is pulled into Helo’s arms.
He holds her tightly. “Thought we lost you,” he murmurs into her hair. “Almost gave up on you ever flying back out of that storm.”
“It wasn’t so long,” she says quizzically, and then tenses when Helo pulls back with a frown.
“It’s been two weeks, Kara,” he says, concerned.
She stares at him. “But--” And then she stops, unable to explain. Instead she presses a quick kiss to his cheek, and whispers in his ear. “I know where Earth is. We’ll be there soon.”
Helo looks at her with something between wonder and doubt. Kara grins. Then she looks around the circle who’ve gathered on the hangar deck. “Where’s Leoben?”
She sees Caprica’s face fall as she asks the question. Helo’s arm tightens around her shoulders. Athena shakes her head.
“Where is he?” Kara asks more sharply, looking back and forth between them.
“He killed himself.” It’s Helo who answers. “He thought you were dead.”
She shakes her head in confusion. “No.”
Caprica moves closer, reaching out to take Kara’s hand. “He loved you,” she offers.
“He loves me,” Kara snaps. “He’s alive! I can’t feel him, he’s right--” And she stops. She has no words for what’s changed inside of her, for her conviction that Leoben is alive and waiting for her. She can practically feel him beside her, pulse throbbing in time with her own. “We have to go save him,” Kara tells Caprica breathlessly, then turns back to the others.
The joy on their faces has turned to uncertainty.
“Let’s get you to Doc Cottle,” Laura says slowly. “Just to make sure you’ve come through the storm alright.”
Kara steps toward her, smiling through her sudden confusion. “It’s okay. I know where Earth is. I can take us there.” She watches hope and fear war across Laura’s face.
“First we just need to know you’re alright,” the other woman says, but her voice shakes with the desire to believe.
While Cottle clears her, Baltar and Gaeta pepper Kara with questions, spinning out their theory about where she was and how her Viper escaped the sensors. Gaeta’s developed an idea that there’s some sort of wormhole in the cloud and won’t be talked out of it. Kara starts to explain, but realizes quickly how ridiculous the story sounds, and gives in. They need their science, these two.
As soon as it’s over, she heads for the Agathons’ quarters. She finds Athena there with Caprica and Hera, and the women turn to her in something like alarm as she enters.
“Kara!” Hera shouts, and Kara crouches, scooping the little girl into her arms. She presses a kiss to the child’s temple with a new reverence. Hera wraps her arms around Kara’s neck and snuggles close. For a moment Kara just holds on, then she smiles over
Hera’s shoulder at Sharon and Caprica.
“Welcome back,” Athena says softly.
Kara nods, then sets Hera back down. “I need your help.”
Caprica folds her arms, looking troubled. “He’s gone. I saw him kill himself. His chest was ripped open...” She looks away, flinching at the memory.
For the first time Kara’s resolve falters, and she hears the hybrid’s words ring in her ears. The harbinger of death. But when she reaches into herself she can feel his existence, flickering in the distance. “I don’t know how to explain it,” Kara says firmly, “but he’s alive. I can feel him.”
Athena nods, unconvinced. “Helo said you found Earth?” she asks, eager and wary at once.
Kara smiles in relief. “I can feel it. I’ve seen it. We’re almost there.”
“You have the coordinates?” Athena presses.
Hera hugs Kara’s legs and she looks down, petting the girl’s dark hair. “It’s not like that. I have to follow the song.”
“Starbuck,” Sharon says, the name a sob, and Kara looks up to find her friend hopeless again.
“I know it sounds crazy, but it’s the truth. I can take us there.” Her voice is strained with her need to convince them, with the certainty that’s overwhelming her.
“How can going through a wormhole give you knowledge like that?” Caprica asks gently. “I know you want to find Earth, but maybe you hit your head--”
“It wasn’t a wormhole.” Kara looks fervently between the two of them. “I was beyond this universe. I could see everything. The whole story, the whole journey we’re on. It’s taken thousands of years and we’re finally almost finished! We’ve almost made it!” Her chest is so tight with joy she could nearly cry.
The others don't answer. Kara looks back and forth between them wildly, and then drops her eyes to Hera’s upturned face. “We’re almost there,” she promises, and leaves before the Cylons can say anything more.
Adama welcomes her into his quarters with an arm around her shoulders and a glass of water.
“So Cottle says I’m fine,” Kara starts.
“I heard,” Adama says, gesturing for her to sit.
Kara stands instead, pacing. “I saw something out there, something I can’t explain, but I know where Earth is now. I can feel it in the distance.”
“You can feel it?” His voice is raw with disappointment.
“I just need you to let me take us there.”
He rests his elbows on his knees, his head falling as the weight of the worlds returns. “Explain it to me, Kara. What happened to you out there?”
She fumbles for the words. “What should happen to everyone.”
Adama shakes his head. “What does that mean?”
Kara smiles, grace in her eyes. “Clarity. Love. I understood for the first time...maybe ever... I could see everything, all the cycles. That there’s a choice between the way things have always been and the way things could be--and I have to make it.”
His eyes beg for reason. “That doesn’t make sense.”
She shrugs. “Does it have to?”
Adama’s jaw sets. “We’re two jumps from the nebula, from the next clue to Earth. Gaeta’s setting in the course.”
“We’re only going there because of a vision!” Kara protests. “You say you don’t believe, but you know that’s not true. You’ve always had faith in me!”
His eyes close. “That may be true, but this--you’ve never been like this before.”
“No.” And at least she can agree to that. “I haven’t.”
Adama nods. “We’ll be at the nebula tomorrow morning.”
Kara sighs in frustration, clenches her teeth. “At least let me take a Raptor and find Leoben. He’s alive. I know it.”
Now the Admiral grimaces. “He’s a Cylon, Starbuck. There are plenty more.”
She stares at him, wondering suddenly if they’re really ready for Earth. Wondering if she’ll ever be able to tell him the other truths she learned in the maelstrom. “He’s not,” she says firmly, “like anyone else in the universe. And I love him. And he’s alive.”
He meets her gaze without understanding. “No.”
Kara fumes as she makes her way to her quarters, to their quarters. She can hear the music, can feel its purpose so intensely that the others’ refusal to believe feels like a violation.
Her message to Leoben is still there on the wall: two of them, together in the storm. For the first time she understands what it meant, and tears spring to her eyes. He might be gone. Earth might be a lost cause.
“Don’t give up,” Daniel says softly. “You knew it would be hard.”
Kara nods sharply. “Don’t worry, I made my choice.”
“Oh, Kara,” he says, and she can hear his smile, “I’m not worried.”
She sighs, exhausted with the scope of the task ahead. With a final glance at the mandala, she sinks down onto her bed.
She sleeps that night, alone, and wakes without even dreams for comfort.
Her protests that she already knows which way to go are ignored again through the first jump, even as Kara clutches her head in pain and sudden fear. She tries not to scream in frustration as she heads to the hangar deck, grabs a wrench and pours her energy into one of the scrap Vipers.
As they prepare for the final jump, her head starts to pound, the first quiet notes playing in her mind. Kara starts to hum along, and suddenly the universe seems to come into alignment. Kara sighs, smiling. The world contracts to a point.
Then the shock of the jump fades away and she can feel Leoben, so close that it seems that by simply reaching out she could touch him. She starts to laugh.
“Condition One!” Adama’s voice barks over the comms. “Enemy baseships in immediate proximity. All pilots man your ships!” As one every person in the hangar leaps into motion. Kara’s across the deck and into a Raptor before anyone can stop her.
Athena catches her eyes through the window, but Kara shakes her head, grinning, and Sharon orders the knuckledraggers to get the Raptor in the air.
She flies alone through the black, navigating the Raiders and Vipers without thinking, lost in the sensation of Leoben’s nearness and the building of the music and the promise that the universe has made her.
Her Raptor, like the others, is outfitted for landing in baseships, and after a few tense moments she gets inside without being shot down. For the first time, Kara’s not lost. She runs through the basestar, not slowing down long enough even to check around the corners before she turns. Behind her she can hear footsteps steps echoing. She races faster.
Finally she finds the door, flings herself through it and forces it shut with her body.
For a moment Kara rests, breathless, against the wall. Then she looks around the room in wonder and a little horror: at the hundreds of tubs, at the lifeless bodies.
One comes to life; Leoben gasps his first breath.
Kara runs to him, twines her fingers with his as she smiles brilliantly. “I’m here.”
Chapter 12
Rating: R
Characters: Kara/Leoben, Helo, Caprica, Hera, & more
Word Count (this chapter): 1,787
WARNINGS: Non-canon character death. Canon-level violence and themes of suicide.
Chapter 11A
Chapter 11B
Kara hums to herself, smiling, as her Viper rises through the layers of cloud: blue, then red, then gold--and suddenly Galactica is in sight. His words are fading now, dream-like in memory, but she can still feel his love wrapping around her, holding her close.
“Starbuck?” Gaeta’s voice breaks excitedly over the comm.
“Permission to land,” she sings out.
“Granted.”
Kara takes a deep breath and slides open the canopy of her Viper. She unbuckles, pops her helmet, and stands, reaching for the railing of the ladder.
“Starbuck,” Adama says, staring up at her. He looks stunned.
She scrambles down the steps and he’s hugging her, holding onto her. Kara relaxes into him, rubbing his back. “It’s okay,” she says. “It’s me.”
“Kara?”
She turns and is pulled into Helo’s arms.
He holds her tightly. “Thought we lost you,” he murmurs into her hair. “Almost gave up on you ever flying back out of that storm.”
“It wasn’t so long,” she says quizzically, and then tenses when Helo pulls back with a frown.
“It’s been two weeks, Kara,” he says, concerned.
She stares at him. “But--” And then she stops, unable to explain. Instead she presses a quick kiss to his cheek, and whispers in his ear. “I know where Earth is. We’ll be there soon.”
Helo looks at her with something between wonder and doubt. Kara grins. Then she looks around the circle who’ve gathered on the hangar deck. “Where’s Leoben?”
She sees Caprica’s face fall as she asks the question. Helo’s arm tightens around her shoulders. Athena shakes her head.
“Where is he?” Kara asks more sharply, looking back and forth between them.
“He killed himself.” It’s Helo who answers. “He thought you were dead.”
She shakes her head in confusion. “No.”
Caprica moves closer, reaching out to take Kara’s hand. “He loved you,” she offers.
“He loves me,” Kara snaps. “He’s alive! I can’t feel him, he’s right--” And she stops. She has no words for what’s changed inside of her, for her conviction that Leoben is alive and waiting for her. She can practically feel him beside her, pulse throbbing in time with her own. “We have to go save him,” Kara tells Caprica breathlessly, then turns back to the others.
The joy on their faces has turned to uncertainty.
“Let’s get you to Doc Cottle,” Laura says slowly. “Just to make sure you’ve come through the storm alright.”
Kara steps toward her, smiling through her sudden confusion. “It’s okay. I know where Earth is. I can take us there.” She watches hope and fear war across Laura’s face.
“First we just need to know you’re alright,” the other woman says, but her voice shakes with the desire to believe.
While Cottle clears her, Baltar and Gaeta pepper Kara with questions, spinning out their theory about where she was and how her Viper escaped the sensors. Gaeta’s developed an idea that there’s some sort of wormhole in the cloud and won’t be talked out of it. Kara starts to explain, but realizes quickly how ridiculous the story sounds, and gives in. They need their science, these two.
As soon as it’s over, she heads for the Agathons’ quarters. She finds Athena there with Caprica and Hera, and the women turn to her in something like alarm as she enters.
“Kara!” Hera shouts, and Kara crouches, scooping the little girl into her arms. She presses a kiss to the child’s temple with a new reverence. Hera wraps her arms around Kara’s neck and snuggles close. For a moment Kara just holds on, then she smiles over
Hera’s shoulder at Sharon and Caprica.
“Welcome back,” Athena says softly.
Kara nods, then sets Hera back down. “I need your help.”
Caprica folds her arms, looking troubled. “He’s gone. I saw him kill himself. His chest was ripped open...” She looks away, flinching at the memory.
For the first time Kara’s resolve falters, and she hears the hybrid’s words ring in her ears. The harbinger of death. But when she reaches into herself she can feel his existence, flickering in the distance. “I don’t know how to explain it,” Kara says firmly, “but he’s alive. I can feel him.”
Athena nods, unconvinced. “Helo said you found Earth?” she asks, eager and wary at once.
Kara smiles in relief. “I can feel it. I’ve seen it. We’re almost there.”
“You have the coordinates?” Athena presses.
Hera hugs Kara’s legs and she looks down, petting the girl’s dark hair. “It’s not like that. I have to follow the song.”
“Starbuck,” Sharon says, the name a sob, and Kara looks up to find her friend hopeless again.
“I know it sounds crazy, but it’s the truth. I can take us there.” Her voice is strained with her need to convince them, with the certainty that’s overwhelming her.
“How can going through a wormhole give you knowledge like that?” Caprica asks gently. “I know you want to find Earth, but maybe you hit your head--”
“It wasn’t a wormhole.” Kara looks fervently between the two of them. “I was beyond this universe. I could see everything. The whole story, the whole journey we’re on. It’s taken thousands of years and we’re finally almost finished! We’ve almost made it!” Her chest is so tight with joy she could nearly cry.
The others don't answer. Kara looks back and forth between them wildly, and then drops her eyes to Hera’s upturned face. “We’re almost there,” she promises, and leaves before the Cylons can say anything more.
Adama welcomes her into his quarters with an arm around her shoulders and a glass of water.
“So Cottle says I’m fine,” Kara starts.
“I heard,” Adama says, gesturing for her to sit.
Kara stands instead, pacing. “I saw something out there, something I can’t explain, but I know where Earth is now. I can feel it in the distance.”
“You can feel it?” His voice is raw with disappointment.
“I just need you to let me take us there.”
He rests his elbows on his knees, his head falling as the weight of the worlds returns. “Explain it to me, Kara. What happened to you out there?”
She fumbles for the words. “What should happen to everyone.”
Adama shakes his head. “What does that mean?”
Kara smiles, grace in her eyes. “Clarity. Love. I understood for the first time...maybe ever... I could see everything, all the cycles. That there’s a choice between the way things have always been and the way things could be--and I have to make it.”
His eyes beg for reason. “That doesn’t make sense.”
She shrugs. “Does it have to?”
Adama’s jaw sets. “We’re two jumps from the nebula, from the next clue to Earth. Gaeta’s setting in the course.”
“We’re only going there because of a vision!” Kara protests. “You say you don’t believe, but you know that’s not true. You’ve always had faith in me!”
His eyes close. “That may be true, but this--you’ve never been like this before.”
“No.” And at least she can agree to that. “I haven’t.”
Adama nods. “We’ll be at the nebula tomorrow morning.”
Kara sighs in frustration, clenches her teeth. “At least let me take a Raptor and find Leoben. He’s alive. I know it.”
Now the Admiral grimaces. “He’s a Cylon, Starbuck. There are plenty more.”
She stares at him, wondering suddenly if they’re really ready for Earth. Wondering if she’ll ever be able to tell him the other truths she learned in the maelstrom. “He’s not,” she says firmly, “like anyone else in the universe. And I love him. And he’s alive.”
He meets her gaze without understanding. “No.”
Kara fumes as she makes her way to her quarters, to their quarters. She can hear the music, can feel its purpose so intensely that the others’ refusal to believe feels like a violation.
Her message to Leoben is still there on the wall: two of them, together in the storm. For the first time she understands what it meant, and tears spring to her eyes. He might be gone. Earth might be a lost cause.
“Don’t give up,” Daniel says softly. “You knew it would be hard.”
Kara nods sharply. “Don’t worry, I made my choice.”
“Oh, Kara,” he says, and she can hear his smile, “I’m not worried.”
She sighs, exhausted with the scope of the task ahead. With a final glance at the mandala, she sinks down onto her bed.
She sleeps that night, alone, and wakes without even dreams for comfort.
Her protests that she already knows which way to go are ignored again through the first jump, even as Kara clutches her head in pain and sudden fear. She tries not to scream in frustration as she heads to the hangar deck, grabs a wrench and pours her energy into one of the scrap Vipers.
As they prepare for the final jump, her head starts to pound, the first quiet notes playing in her mind. Kara starts to hum along, and suddenly the universe seems to come into alignment. Kara sighs, smiling. The world contracts to a point.
Then the shock of the jump fades away and she can feel Leoben, so close that it seems that by simply reaching out she could touch him. She starts to laugh.
“Condition One!” Adama’s voice barks over the comms. “Enemy baseships in immediate proximity. All pilots man your ships!” As one every person in the hangar leaps into motion. Kara’s across the deck and into a Raptor before anyone can stop her.
Athena catches her eyes through the window, but Kara shakes her head, grinning, and Sharon orders the knuckledraggers to get the Raptor in the air.
She flies alone through the black, navigating the Raiders and Vipers without thinking, lost in the sensation of Leoben’s nearness and the building of the music and the promise that the universe has made her.
Her Raptor, like the others, is outfitted for landing in baseships, and after a few tense moments she gets inside without being shot down. For the first time, Kara’s not lost. She runs through the basestar, not slowing down long enough even to check around the corners before she turns. Behind her she can hear footsteps steps echoing. She races faster.
Finally she finds the door, flings herself through it and forces it shut with her body.
For a moment Kara rests, breathless, against the wall. Then she looks around the room in wonder and a little horror: at the hundreds of tubs, at the lifeless bodies.
One comes to life; Leoben gasps his first breath.
Kara runs to him, twines her fingers with his as she smiles brilliantly. “I’m here.”
Chapter 12
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2012-02-07 02:30 pm (UTC)MY FLAILING, LET ME SHOW YOU IT
ALSO MY EPIC BOUNCING
*bouncebouncebounce*
...Ahem.
I know it makes perfect sense for Adama's character, but whenever he gets like this, all I can think of is Emperor Palpatine and "I find your lack of faith disturbing."
The completely pissed-off certainty in Kara's lines about how No, Leoben's not dead and he loves her, present-tense, are great. She not only doesn't believe what anyone's telling her, it's almost like she's determined to drag him back from being dead (although she knows damn well he isn't). Very true to her character. ♥
no subject
Date: 2012-02-07 02:35 pm (UTC)I'm glad everyone's in character here :)
no subject
Date: 2012-02-07 02:39 pm (UTC)This is the best story ever. ♥
no subject
Date: 2012-02-07 03:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-07 04:15 pm (UTC)One of the things I never bought in the series was that she'd get her "clarity" from seeing Socrata die. Her mother kept her art, that's fine, but that doesn't mean her mother loved her in a healthy way and everything was fine. Besides, I generally read Kara as an abandoned child - as her father's absence being her first real trauma. So I wanted to explore what it would mean to heal *that* wound, for her to really feel that she wasn't abandoned, was always loved. More on exactly what happened to her in the next couple chapters :)
no subject
Date: 2012-02-08 12:36 am (UTC)A completely bravura retelling of canon. *amazed* K :)
no subject
Date: 2012-02-08 12:43 am (UTC)I actually tried to write Kara coming back and believing Leoben was dead, and she wouldn't do it. She was too much better to go to the grief-stricken dark place anymore. I'm glad the certainty works in its place!
Exactly what Kara is will be revealed in time. But don't worry, like everything else here we're hardly following RDM's script!
no subject
Date: 2012-02-08 01:08 am (UTC)Well, I'm completely enjoying the ride, hon, so thank YOU for writing it! I trust you with these characters, because you show them such love. Thank you for that! *HUGS* K :D
no subject
Date: 2013-12-29 03:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-01 11:27 pm (UTC)