author: aj (another_juxtaposition@hotmail.com)
fandom: bsg
pairing: starbuck/galactica!boomer
word count: 1550+
notes: for sweet dreams and flying machines challenge. this is for the delightful florahart, with millions of apologies for the delay and for the mentions of anders. (he just wouldn’t go away!) this is set after “resurrection ship” and before “scar”.

summary: she’s lost everything.

*

Days on Galactica were getting longer, or so it seemed. There were no Cylons to fight, no incoming raiders. Kara’s Viper sat useless in the bay. Lately she’d taken to grabbing a bottle of whatever alcohol she could find and, avoiding eye contact with the Chief, climbing into the cockpit. If she drank enough, and if she closed her eyes, she could feel the space around her, hands on the controls.

If she was flying, she didn’t have to think about Anders. Didn’t have to think about how Cain promised to go back for them, didn’t have to wonder if it was a lie, didn’t have to hide her disappointment in the old man and the way Lee looked at her crookedly.

She stays away from the Triad tables, ignoring the murmurings of how she was starting to act like Tigh. Kat is everywhere Kara looks, staring at her with slanted eyes, smirking at her downfall. Kara refuses to let Kat get the upper hand, but even she has to admit it seems like things are starting to slip.

*

She misses Caprica. She misses the smell of fresh air, the makeshift Pyramid court, the grinding pain of her knee as she moved from side to side trying for a basket. She misses Sam, though only Helo knows. Well, Helo and the toaster.

At night she thinks about crying, but the pilots’ bunks are close together, and Starbuck doesn’t like questions.

Besides, Starbuck doesn’t cry.

*

She’s unsteady on her feet, though she strides down the gangways with purpose. She hasn’t eaten properly in days, so the ambrosia is thick in her veins.

“Let me in,” Kara growls at the guards. The guy on the left looked at her warily, but she fixed her stare on him and he motioned for the other to open the hatch.

A crew member arrived with a tray of food. “Smells divine,” Starbuck said, almost gagging. “I’ll take it in.” The woman merely passed the tray with a shrug.

“Shut the door behind me, boys?” Kara smirked and felt, briefly, like her old self. But then she saw Sharon, and she thought of Caprica, and her feet felt heavy in their boots.

Starbuck walked into the middle of the cell. “Here’s your grub. Come and get it.” She threw the tray down on the table. The white stuff that looked like mashed potatoes didn’t move. Made her think of glue, paste, how she ate it with a kid named Devon in first grade. The thought made her stomach churn.

“You expect me to eat that frakking crap?” Sharon said it lightly, but looked at Kara with distain.

“Don’t frak with me,” Kara’s voice was thick. She avoided Sharon’s eyes. This wasn’t just a friendly social call. Sharon was a toaster, after all, even if she was carrying Helo’s kid. “What do you remember?”

Sharon sighs and moves toward the table. She picks up the fork and absently stabs at the food – some form of meat, Kara thinks. Everything has been different since rationing, and a Cylon doesn’t really have nutritional priority. “I remember it all, Starbuck. The Academy, the drinking,” here Sharon smiles, “the debauchery. Remember the night we snuck into the boy’s barraks and you got Zak with his shaving cream and – ”

Kara punches Sharon hard, throwing her weight into it. But she’s slightly off balance, her head’s a little fuzzy, damn all the ambrosia she’s been consuming. It’s left her a bit soft. Otherwise Sharon would be bleeding, knocked out, or something more drastic than just rubbing her jaw, opening and closing her mouth.

“But that was me. I was your friend. Boomer.” She sounds confused.

“No. No. You’re a machine.” Kara shakes her head, as if the motion could help convince her of the fact.

Sharon crosses her legs on the cell floor and stares at Kara, hard. Kara looks away. “And you don’t have many friends, do you?”

“Who needs extra baggage? I’m a frakking frak up, Sharon. You’ve always known that.” Kara slides down against the wall, letting her knees pull up to her chest. She rests her head on her knees.

“Except for the part where you’re not.”

“A frakking toaster.” Starbuck doesn’t look up.

“Maybe. But I’m the one friend you’ve got right now.”

“Don’t make yourself so important. I don’t need you.”

“Perhaps, but you want me. Or you wouldn’t be here.”

“You have no idea why I’m here.” Kara ran her fingers in circles over her knees, distracting herself by trying to find differences between her good knee and the bad one. If it hadn’t been for that knee, she would have never been Starbuck, never been Lt. Thrace, never would have met Sharon, never would be having this conversation with a toaster. She never would have –

“Strip,” Kara commanded, not even looking up.

“What?”

“You heard me.” Kara’s voice holds an edge and this time she does look up. Sharon’s eyes are impassive as she reaches down and pulls her white tank over her head. Kara feels a bit like Starbuck again, but her head is still a bit fuzzy. Still, she’s bucking protocol and doing as she pleases and Starbuck had seen Sharon naked enough over the years, had – well. Kara looked away. She needed another drink.

“Got anything to drink in here?” She stands up and brushes her hands against her thighs. Sharon had already taken off her pants and is carefully folding her clothes in a pile. Kara never understood that, never got the discipline part of the Academy – that much was obvious. Besides, just ask Lee or Tigh, and they would confirm her story. Kara’s clothes were always strewn around the room or shoved in a duffel or dropped at the bottom of her locker. She likes wrinkles, thinks they bring her character. Not that Starbuck needs anything to supplement her character, as her attitude is quite enough. She thinks of Sam suddenly, and wants to vomit.

“You okay, Starbuck?” Sharon’s hands are on her hips. She looks perfectly comfortable standing there in her skivvies.

“Frakking peachy,” Kara replies, and moves towards her. She puts her hands on Sharon’s shoulders, moves one hand to Sharon’s cheek, right where she punched the toaster minutes before. “Do you remember this?”

Sharon smiled and before Kara can catch her breath, Sharon is kissing her, hard. Kara’s thinking of Helo, thinking of Sam, thinking of Zak, and she runs a hand through Sharon’s hair.

“I remember that,” Sharon says with a smile.

Kara recoils and pushes Sharon against the wall. She leans over and pulls Sharon’s underwear down, exposing her light flesh. It looks real, so real, and Kara thinks about all the times she’s seen Sharon naked, the truth about friends, and has to close her eyes.

“What the frak do you think you’re doing, Starbuck?” But Sharon’s voice isn’t harsh, more curious than anything.

Kara turns away, leaving Sharon standing awkwardly against the wall.

“You don’t have it. You’re not her.” It’s almost a relief and Kara wants to laugh, but at the same time she’s filled with an inexplicable sadness.

She has lost everything.

“Don’t have what?” Sharon’s still standing against the wall, but she’s pulled her clothing up and crossed her arms. “It’s me, how many times do I have to – ”

“No!” Kara whirls around, eyes blazing. “Stop with the frakking lies, already! You might have her memories, but you’re just a frakking copy, a stupid toaster, you’re not even real.” She turns her back on Sharon. “Because Boomer,” and Kara emphasizes the nickname, “and I were friends.”

“But I am Boomer. We are –”

Kara doesn’t bother raising her voice. She’s tired now, she wants to leave. “No. You’re not. Boomer had a scar, right there, on her hip. It was from a pretty bad accident, the third time she tried to land her Raptor. She was out for weeks, pissed she was falling behind, so I worked with her in the stimulator and -”

Sharon’s voice was quiet. “And that’s when we first kissed, with your hands over mine, showing me how to be gentle with the throttle, how to caress it, how to love it. You showed me how to fly.”

Kara walked toward the door. “You’re not her. And no matter how hard you try, you never will be.”

“Kara,” she hears, Sharon’s voice pleading, but Kara just opens the hatch and walks through.

“Enjoy your dinner,” she calls over her shoulder. “I hope it’s good enough for a toaster.”

She needs a drink. Gods, does Kara need a drink. She passes Dee in the hall, and avoids her eyes. “Starbuck, they’re looking for you –” Kara cuts her off with a wave of her hand. “Take a message, would ya, Dee? I’m a little busy.”

*

For the first time, Galactica feels small, and Kara finds herself walking in circles. The crew is starting to stare at her, so she takes a bottle of ambrosia and heads down to the Viper bay. The lights are dimmed, though people are still working. She can hear the Chief giving orders and wonders if they ever sleep.

Kara climbs into the nearest Viper and rests the bottle between her legs. She closes her eyes and pictures the stars, but faces appear like a movie behind her closed eyelids. Zak. Sam, her parents, Cain, Sharon.

“I taught her how to fly,” she whispers, and opens the bottle.

*

(darkness falls. the curtain rises.)
  . send a flower .
    . back to the garden .