author: aj (another_juxtaposition@hotmail.com)
fandom: bsg
codes: kara
spoilers: everything through 3.04 – Exodus II
notes: oh, the inspiration of the insane. my starbuck has always been a little . . . shaky, but this season just seemed to let things loose. and who was i to deny myself a chance to write a little crazy? lot’s of thanks to quasiradiant for being such a dedicated beta, she even printed it out!

summary: One little monkey, jumping on the bed, he fell off and broke his head.

*

It’s dark. There’s a bump on her head, and she can’t see her hands. She doesn’t know where she is, doesn’t know what happened. She tries not to be afraid. Fear will only cripple her.

She calms her breathing, listens. Feels the walls slowly. She is confined. Has been confined. How long? How many days have passed now?

She lies on her back, head against the cold concrete, and tries to remember things to keep herself sane. She sings songs she learned in grade school on Caprica, songs she thought she had forgotten long ago.

There is something about a monkey and a weasel, though Kara never could figure out if the monkey was evil, or if the weasel deserved it.

She can’t remember the whole thing, and so she lays down on the concrete floor, and thinks of something else. Recites prayers to her gods, imagining her idols in front of her, Demeter and Athena and Hera and Artemis.

She thinks of Persephone, trapped in the Underworld with Hades for half the year, all for the price of six small pomegranate seeds. One month for each seed and Hades, a god who had to steal a woman to claim a wife.

She wonders how long she will have to wait. She doesn’t have a mother like Demeter to scour the earth and underworld for her, to bargain with the king of the gods for her release. She only has . . .

Who?

*

Round and round the cobbler’s bench, the monkey chased the weasel, the weasel thought ‘twas all for fun –

*

Something isn’t right. Kara stares at the plate in front of her. Sam made some sort of dinner for them, even though Kara expressly told him to stay in bed. At least she didn’t find him on the pyramid court, as she had so many other days.

Yesterday was different though, yesterday the invasion began, and today Kara remembered what it felt like to be at war.

Sam is talking about the boys at the pyramid court – she knows them all – could beat all their collective asses – but there’s something telling in his tone.

A fork. She doesn’t have a fork.

She notices the silence suddenly and realizes Sam is waiting for her answer. Kara smiles, pushing her long hair out of her face. “Yeah,” she says, “Tired tonight,” she offers, hoping the non sequitur will cover her.

Sam’s eyes sparkle. “Fireworks tomorrow night, honey.”

Kara is a captain, she is a soldier. She’s the best frakking Viper pilot in the whole of the human race, and she hasn’t been in the air in months.

“So the Chief said. I wish Roslin would –”

Sam cuts her off. “The children are important. They suspect her anyway.”

Kara stands up, her food untouched. “They suspect us all.” She laughs bitterly. “Except for the bastard Baltar.”

“I heard something about recruiting civilian police.”

“Great. Frakking beautiful.” Kara turns her back to her husband and the table. The walls of the tent seem to be closing in. “I’ll be back,” she says.

“Remember curfew,” Sam says. Kara smirks at him. “Worried about me, baby?” She carefully pulls on an extra pair of socks and laces her boots tightly.

“Never,” Sam says, with a slight smile. “Just don’t die on me.”

She kisses his forehead. It’s warm, too warm. She wipes the sweat from around his eyes. “You too.”

Sam coughs, and falls back against the bed. Kara grabs the bucket, and walks toward the tent flap. She stops, and looks back at Sam. His eyes are closed.

She presses her fingers to her lips, and starts off into the night, whispering – Lords of Kobol, hear my prayer . . .

*

After the fourth time, she dragged his body (was it a body? Was it alive? Can machines be alive?) into the bedroom she never slept in. She found some paper and matches under the sink, some emergency oil, and she lit the body on fire.

The smell was awful. She didn’t know if it was because the body was synthetic or if all bodies burning smelled that bad.

She picked at her toes on the couch. This little piggy went to market, this little piggy came stayed home . . .

And then he was back, hand on her hair, “What did you do this time, Kara?” he said quietly, tenderly. She wanted to vomit.

“You’ve made quite a mess.”

*

She can’t remember sleeping. The couch is comfortable, but she misses her rack on Galactica, misses her cot in that frakking tent on that frakking planet, misses – who?

*

Sometimes she hears voices. She can’t remember their faces, their names. They tell her, you don’t belong here, Kara. She stares out the open window and wonders if someone painted it just for her.

All these faces, all these people, but the apartment is empty and she’s alone.

*

One night she dreams of Lee, of asking for meds. Her hair was long, she was growing soft. She left the sky for Sam. She needed the meds for Sam. She begged for Sam.

She wakes up sweating. Who is Sam? How long has she been here?

*

“Aren’t you hungry?” he asks her, and Kara just stares at him. “All humans feel hunger,” he says, as if he is the expert on all things human.

Is she not human then? What if she is one of – no, why would he care about her so much if she were just another Cylon model? But . . . after all, Boomer didn’t know, maybe she’s a model with a special destiny, maybe she’s, maybe –

Her head is throbbing. She leaves the table and sleeps on the bathroom floor.

*

The first time it was a well placed elbow to the nose, shoving his septum into his brain. He didn’t know what hit him, she laughed. And laughed. They couldn’t defeat Starbuck. She’d killed more frakking Cylons than anyone in the fleet –

Twenty minutes later, as she tried to break the glass doors, she heard the door open. Froze. Grabbed the heaviest thing she could find (a glass vase) and hid next to the stairs.

“Honey. I’m home.” His voice was exactly the same. She dropped the vase in shock. Kara stared at the dead body – machine? – and prepared herself for punishment.

But he just smiled and said, “God is love, Kara.” She spit on him. He ignored her and walked into the kitchen. “Fried chicken? Or maybe some pasta . . .”

Kara sank to the floor and stared at her hands as if somehow, they had an answer.

*

Who was Starbuck? Why was she hearing that name over and over again?

She was Kara, Kara Thrace, and she had to get back to . . .

Frak. She slammed her hand against the table. Leoben, or his shell anyway, was dead beside her, and she couldn’t remember, only that this was wrong, all wrong, and she once had something to do with stars.

* A penny for a spool of thread, a penny for a needle, that’s the way the money goes –

*

She’s killed him three times now, by his account, and it’s gotten her nowhere. She has no escape. She doesn’t know where she is, she doesn’t know what she’s supposed to be doing, she just know this is wrong and it has to stop. It has to – she used to be stronger than this. She would have been able to find a way out.

So much time has passed. So much time must have passed. And she has failed at escaping, failed at living. She’s surviving, she thinks, but.

Who is she living for? What is she living for? To kill a Cylon repeatedly, to fulfill some Cylon destiny? Why is she important, why isn’t she dead by now? Death, she thinks, would be a relief.

And that man in the bed, the hazy memory, is he dead? All these faces, all these names, Leoben dead beside her, and everything seems to be repeating.

She is stuck in a circle, spinning around alone, alone, and Kara has never been one for symbolism.

She stares at her reflection in the mirror, watches tears pool in her dark eyes. Kara hates weakness and she punches her reflection with her fist, glass shattering everywhere.

It seems appropriate, she thinks, looking at her fractured image.

Slowly, without fully noticing what she’s going, she picks up a piece of the glass. Fingers it. Drags it slowly against the pale skin of her left wrist.

She feels nothing, but blood appears. She presses harder and tries again, but then he’s back and his arms are around her and he’s whispering softly into her ear. “It’s all right, baby, it’s all right,” and even though it’s him, even though she hates him, she turns and cries into his chest, and though she knows he’s feeling victorious, she doesn’t care.

She’s so tired of being alone.

*

All of a sudden she remembers Roslin, Roslin having visions of snakes, Roslin asking her to get the arrow. The Arrow of Apollo, the Delphi Museum, Caprica after the attack – her gods, her people. Roslin, the old man, Lee and her, standing in the tomb of Athena, feet on Earth.

She remembers Earth, and knows she will kill Leoben again.

*

She hated history in school. She hated school in general, except that it was an escape from home – teachers weren’t allowed to hit Kara when she talked back, though she could always tell they wanted to. Her mom, on the other hand –

Sometimes she thinks about painting. About asking for supplies, but Kara doesn’t want to rack up any debt, incur any favors.

Sam, Anders, her husband, is probably dead. The fleet left them, and though she knows Adama will be back, she doesn’t know if he can do it. She doesn’t know if she can wait that long. Kara plays with the ends of her hair and realizes she has no home.

Caprica – well, that was never really home.

Galactica – she left it.

And now – where is she again?

Repeat what she does know: Lt. Kara “Starbuck” Thrace, wife of Samuel T. Anders. She is a person, a human being, not a puppet of the Cylon god.

She was forgetting. She can’t forget.

*

One, three, five, red, seven, nine, eleven, orange, thirteen, fifteen, seventeen, yellow . . .

How many days? How many times?

Was this even living?

*

One day he woke her up. She didn’t remember falling asleep, didn’t remember changing her clothes, pulling a blanket up over the couch, but there is so much she doesn’t remember. He told her to get up, took her elbow. Said she didn’t need to bother with shoes, but he had something to show her.

Sometimes she wonders if he drugs her, but then thinks he enjoys his little game too much.

They left her fake apartment, her wrists in chains. Down the hallway that seemed to go on forever, and simultaneously muffled all sounds while carrying an echo. Or maybe the echo was just in Kara’s head. Sometimes the silence made her scream.

Leoben stopped her, and she turned to yell at him. He was staring straight ahead. She followed his eyes and discovered they were standing in front of a cell – they must have passed other cells on the way – she cursed herself for not paying better attention. How was she ever going to get out if she couldn’t even do preliminary recon?

There was a man, skin and bones, huddled in the corner. The room smelled like shit. Kara noticed an overflowing bucket in the corner. She looked down at her bare feet, and wondered how far down the hall she could get.

Leoben touched her shoulder. “Just a minute now.”

“What- ” she turned to glare at him, but got cut off by another voice.

It was one of the Fives, or a Five, a frakking toaster and she hated she was growing so familiar with them.

“Morning, Leoben.”

“Morning, Ted.”

The Five, Ted, walked in front of them and unlocked the cell. He gave no notice to Kara. She turned to Leoben and whispered, “What’s happening?” but Leoben didn’t respond. Ted pulled out a gun. The man on the floor stared in his general direction with glassy eyes.

“Part of the insurgency,” Ted said, by way of explanation, Kara guessed. And then he shot the man, right between the eyes, only a small trickle of blood and the slight slump of the body revealing anything amiss.

Ted put his gun away and shrugged. “See ya round, man.” Kara stared in horror at the dead man. She tried desperately to place him, to give a name to his face, not sure which was worse – to know him, or just know of him. The insurgency – she wanted to squeeze the fabricated life out of Ted’s neck and ask how many others were dead, how many others were captured, if her friends were safe. If Sam was alive.

But Ted walked away whistling, and Kara was chained, trapped, caged. She shivered. Leoben leaned over and whispered in her ear, “See, honey? It could be so much worse.” He tucked her hair behind her ears and gently grabbed her arm. “Let’s get you home.” Kara could do nothing but follow and she thought, that’s how it’s going to end. She always thought she would die fighting, but.

Even death was taken from her.

She tripped and he caught her elbow. “Easy, easy. No need to worry. God has great plans for you, Kara Thrace,” and she wonders when her own gods decided to abandon her.

*

She knows she has to kill him. She know she has to keep trying. Even if it ends with a bullet to the head, she hopes she will have killed him well enough, painfully enough, that it won’t be in vain.

That he’ll remember. Especially because she can’t.

Once he brought two Sixes and an Eight over for dinner. “You need to work on your conversation skills,” he said. Kara pointed out that he had an odd number of guests and that really, even numbers work best for dinner parties. He seemed to make a mental note of it, apologized, and said it wouldn’t happen again.

She thought, if only so many things wouldn’t happen again.

The first time she saw the Six, she growled, “I thought I already killed you, bitch.”

But then another Six appeared and said, “No, that was me, back on Caprica.” She smiled, her blonde hair loose and curly. “As I remember, you have a mean left hook.”

Kara tried to look calm, as if she couldn’t care less. She threw herself on the couch and refused to make eye contact. “Hope it hurt,” she couldn’t resist replying. The Six that she’d killed stood behind Kara on the couch. She put her hands on Kara’s shoulders, and leaned in close. Said, quietly, somehow seductively, “Let’s just say you’re lucky to have him,” she said, turning Kara’s head toward Leoben.

“I don’t need him,” she said, pushing her hair out of her eyes.

“Don’t you?” The Six asked questioningly. The other Six put her hand on the first Six’s arm. “Not now.” They shared a glance, and walked into the kitchen. Kara’s head started to throb, and she leaned forward, resting her head in her hands.

Later, as they were leaving, Kara having made it through dinner without a single word, one of the Sixes came up to her and kissed her hard on the lips. Kara pushed her away and swung a punch, but the Six stopped her fist before it could land where Kara aimed. The Six seemed unperturbed. “God is love, Kara.”

“You don’t know love,” Kara sneered, trying not to lose face.

The Sixes left. The Eight, who said Kara could call her Sharon if it made things easier, rested a hand on Kara’s shoulder. “I miss the sky too,” she said, paused a moment, and left. None of them looked back.

Leoben came up and wrapped his arms around her waist. She tried not to shudder. “Try a little harder next time, hmmm, honey?”

“Of course,” she said, and plunged her steak knife into his stomach.

*

A half a pound of tuppeny rice, a half a pound of treacle. Mix it up and make it nice –

*

It only happened once.

She thinks.

It was between the second and third murders, if she has it remembered correctly.

She tries not to think about it.

Kara had fallen asleep on the couch as usual. Leoben had been out, but she didn’t fear him anymore. He couldn’t hurt her. And she would make him regret finding her, she would . . .

She was dreaming. She was in the Blackbird, playing hide and seek with Lee, whose frustrated voice just made her laugh.

“I can’t find you, Kara. Where the frak are you?” His frustrated voice just made her laugh.

“Galactica, this is Starbuck. The Blackbird’s a certifiable pain in Apollo’s ass.”

And then they are back in the rack, towels wrapped around their damp bodies, and Kara takes her shirt and swats Lee’s bare skin with it.

“Oh, now you’re going to get it,” he says, his smile giving him away. She giggles and tries to run, clutching her towel around her. “Yeah, well just try and catch me,” she taunts.

They dance around the table until suddenly Lee leaps on top of it and grabs Kara’s arms. She gasps, and then laughs, her towel falling away.

“Caught you,” Lee says, his voice low.

“Aye, aye, Captain.”

And then they are kissing and she leaning back on the table and his weight is on her, and somewhere she knows she’s dreaming but it feels so real.

“You are a gift from God,” she hears, and her eyes fly open.

It’s not Lee on top of her, it’s Leoben, and he’s gently stroking her face, kissing her neck, tracing his fingers along her breasts. Her body is responding, and she hates herself, tries to focus. The machine is trying to love her – physically love her – and Kara has slept with many stupid men, but she never felt so violated.

She closes her eyes. He’s teasing her pants open with one hand. She decides to count to three. Kara wills her body to stay relaxed, to not give her away.

On three, she screams, clutches at Leoben’s throat, and his eyes widen in surprise. She throws him off her (he is still shocked) and his head bangs against the corner of the table.

He slumps.

She doesn’t trust him, slamming his head again and again against the table, filled with a rage she had forgotten.

Exhausted, she goes to take a shower.

When she emerges, red from scrubbing her skin until it almost bled underneath scalding hot water, he is waiting for her.

“Moved a little fast, huh?” He rubs his hair with his hand. “All in good time, I suppose. I do apologize, Kara.” He smiled at her, almost lovingly, as if she hadn’t killed him.

For the third time.

*

He found her at the well. She was alone, and it was dark, but Kara wasn’t in the mood for chat, or thinly veiled codes, and the wells were gathering places. She had fifteen minutes until curfew, and she pumped idly, wondering about the old man.

She blames herself. She let her guard down. She allowed herself to daydream. She was a soldier, she should have known better.

He grabbed her arms, pinning them behind her back. Her reflexes were slow after so long planetside. “I’ve been looking for you,” he whispered in her ear. The voice wasn’t immediately familiar, and Kara felt a faint trickling of fear.

“Who are you?” she hissed.

“Now, Kara, I’m hurt. You don’t remember me?” He had tied her wrists with plastic and spun her around to face him.

She kept her face still. “I threw you out an airlock, you frakking toaster.”

He smiled. “I told you I’d be back. I told you, Kara, you and I, we have a destiny together.”

Kara doesn’t remember his name, only that he’s a toaster and she opens her mouth to scream. He’s instantly behind her, hand over her mouth, gripping her long hair tightly.

“I wouldn’t.” he says.

She bites his hand. “Frak!” He shrieks and he drops away. She begins to run, but it’s dark and though she knows the camp inside out, has tread the grounds blindfolded, in her haste she trips over her water bucket. Without her hands to stop her fall, she lands heavily on her front, groaning. Her hair is everywhere and she can’t push it aside, there is mud in her mouth, and she has to get to Sam, or the Chief, or Tigh, or –

His hands are rough on her shoulders as he jerks her up.

“No funny business now, okay? We’ll get you home and you can have a nice warm bath. Won’t that be nice?”

“I’d rather die,” Kara spits, and he looks at her sadly.

“I’d really rather it didn’t come to that. But just in case –”

The last thing she remembers is his hand coming down on her head. When she woke, her wrists were free, and she didn’t know where she was. She didn’t think apartments like this existed on New Caprica.

He walked into the room, a glass of water in his hand. “Here you go,” he said. “I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced, Kara Thrace. I’m Leoben Conoy, and I’m here to make sure you fulfill God’s will.”

Kara almost chokes on the rhetoric, but keeps her face still. Years of playing Triad finally coming in handy. She picked up the glass and pretended to take a sip while glancing around the apartment. “Nice place you have here,” she tried to offer casually, noticing a staircase that must lead to a door.

Leoben leaned back, clearly pleased. “I’m glad you think so. It was hard work convincing the others you were worth it.”

She hated his smug smile. Counted to three, poised on the edge of her chair. Kara threw the glass at Leoben’s head, as hard as she could, and took off sprinting for the stairs. She was barely breathing, adrenaline overtaking, up and up and then –

Bars. There were bars on the door.

It wasn’t an apartment. It was a prison. And Kara was trapped.

She heard his voice from below. “Leaving so quickly, Kara? Why, I thought we were getting along so well.” She slammed her fits against the bars, and slumped against the wall. Running her fingers through her hair, she instructed herself: Think, think think.

She’d escaped before, got herself off a deserted planet with only a Cylon raider for help, blew up a Cylon breeding farm, destroyed a resurrection ship.

She would get out. She just had to keep her wits about her. The time would come. Patience was never Kara’s forte, but.

Survival was something else.

*

Mix it up and make it nice –

*

The days are long and boring.

Sometimes he’s there, trying to make conversation, trying to engage her.

Sometimes he disappears for hours, days, leaving pre-made meals in the kitchen – meals that require no cooking or utensils to eat.

She can’t help but feel like a pet rodent in some lab. She paces the rooms, does push ups on the carpet, tries to keep her mind active.

So she counts things, like cracks in the ceiling and things with the color blue. She says the alphabet backwards, she tries to remember what little she ever knew of the ancient language of the Scripture. She tries to put names to faces, and faces to names.

But her mind reminds of her of a messed up jigsaw puzzle. Kara was always good with space and objects, visualizing everything playing out in her head. She used to complete those puzzles fast. It grew boring, so she started to time herself. One day her mother came home early and watched her. Kara thought her mom would be so proud. Instead she got slapped, and then kicked, her mother asking how she cheated, and didn’t she know what happened to little girls who cheated? Everyone knew Kara wasn’t that smart, couldn’t complete the puzzle that fast all by herself.

Kara now thinks her mom was right. She sees a man, dark hair, lying on a cot, coughing. There’s a woman with a baby, there’s some type of flight craft, grounded, with a radio system, and she’s asking for help but she doesn’t know why and she doesn’t know who she’s begging. There’s someone saying, “The old man’s down,” and a sense of fear, there’s a woman wearing glasses hugging her, telling her what a great job she’s done.

She doesn’t know why she is here. She doesn’t know what is happening outside her elaborate cell.

She does know she has to get out. She thinks about him, about Leoben, the one thing she knows. She walks into the kitchen. He’ll be home soon, she knows, because there isn’t any food left, and he always plans ahead.

Frantically, she starts digging through drawers and cabinets, hoping he’s been stupid enough to overlook something.

She runs her hand underneath the icebox. Her hands close on something cold, something slender, something metal. Kara’s heart stops for a second. She pulls the object out.

Kara doesn’t know what it is, looks like it belongs on her dad’s outdoor grilling set. She pauses for a moment, wondering where that thought came from, if her dad ever grilled.

The door opens. She stands quickly, slides the two-pronged metal fork-thing in her pants. It’s cold, and she shivers, doesn’t want to think about what will happen if he possibly finds it.

Kara forces herself to look calm as he comes down the stairs. She will kill him tonight, stab him, and maybe it will all repeat, but she will have killed him.

“I was thinking steak tonight, honey, since it’s been a while since we’ve had a nice meal together.”

*

Round and round the cobbler’s bench, the monkey chased the weasel. The monkey thought ‘twas all for fun –

*

He came back looking so fit, so . . . alive.

Kara hated him. Hated the fact she knew she was slipping, knew that things were different, knew that even though she could kill him, he still had control.

And then. Then. She could hear him, “Now we’ll be a family.”

The child with the golden hair. Kacey, the child with big eyes, eager to please.

Staring at Kara like she knew her, like Kara was something to her.

Because apparently, Kara was her mother.

As soon as Leoben left her alone, she ignored the kid and ran to the bathroom. The mirror was long, replaced of course, after Kara wrecked the first one. She immediately pulled down her pants, stared at her scar. Traced the pink line with her finger.

Her ovary?

Kara would be the first to admit she didn’t know much about the reproductive system. She doesn’t know exactly what it means that they removed her ovary – she thinks she has another one, doesn’t she? Don’t these things come in pairs? Wait, stop.

Kacey. Her kid?

Kara was never supposed to have kids. She was never going to keep the Thrace line going, never going to transmit these frakked up genes, never going to – she was selfish and she had a shitty childhood and she didn’t know how to deal with kids. Couldn’t just yell at them to shut the frak up, and they didn’t take hits, blows, the way a full grown man did.

She could kill this kid, and she was pretty sure it wouldn’t come back. Kids were more fragile, kids needed responsibility, kids worked well with people like Roslin.

Roslin . . . yes, Roslin sent her to get the arrow. Roslin was the president, Roslin was her friend, Roslin was a teacher. Yes, a teacher. She remembers Roslin. Roslin – if she could, she would get Kacey to Roslin.

She pulled her pants up, and walked back out into the main room. Kacey was picking her nose, legs swinging against the couch. Kara kept a hand on her side, over her scar. She walked toward the couch, and sat down next to the kid.

“Hey,” she said, awkwardly. Kara had never spent time around kids, found them insufferable. Kacey had her finger up her nose and Kara found the whole situation vaguely hilarious.

She started laughing. Kara couldn’t stop, it was so ridiculous, her a mother, this kid belonging to her, trapped with her in this Cylon created room, Leoben who thought he could have a family, could have Kara.

She would kill him again, when the time came.

For now, she couldn’t stop laughing, and after a bit, Kacey started laughing too, as if there was something funny about this. As if this was all just a giant joke.

Suddenly Kara hated the kid, hated what she represented, hated what she meant had been done to her.

She got up and went to the bathroom. Sat on the bathmat, and counted backwards from a thousand.

*

One a penny, two a penny, three, the monkey chased the weasel, hot cross buns, patty-cake patty-cake, baker’s bread, two little monkeys jumping on the bed, one fell off and broke his head, when the bough breaks the cradle with fall –

*

Kara’s eyes were closed, and then she was staring at her reflection in the mirror.

Who am I? Where am I? What –

She hears a noise, a clattering. Something, if that kid broke something of hers Kara’s going to be furious, she’s going to –

And then she sees her, crumpled on the stairs. Blood in a pool. She thinks of all the times she’s killed Leoben, she wonders if half-toasters can come back to life.

Kara rushes over to the tiny, still body. Kacey is still warm. Kara picks her up, gently, and runs up the stairs. She stares out the bars and begins to scream.

“Help! Help me! My baby is hurt! She needs medical attention! Someone! Please! Listen to me!”

Only later will Kara realize she called Kacey her child, accepted the fact that she was somehow intertwined.

Only later will Kara begin to remember, and from there, begin to plan.

*

She watches Kacey’s breathing. Kara keeps her hands to herself, careful not to disturb the child. Her child.

She remembers watching someone else in bed, fearing for someone else’s life. It was Sam, Sam her husband Sam. Sam who might be dead from pneumonia, dead from some planet-frakking disease because she couldn’t get him the meds he needed.

Kara looks at the bandage wrapped around the tousled blonde curls. She resists the urge to touch it, to caress Kacey’s head, to whisper that things will be all right.

Nothing is right.

She is trapped in a prison, with a toaster who believes in love, who believes somehow, joined with Kacey and Kara, there is a beautiful family. A family of the new breed, the new interactions between human and Cylon.

She remembers.

Staring at Kacey’s closed eyes, she remembers. She remembers leaving Galactica, she remembers the first time she saw Anders, on Caprica, forever ago. She remembers finding the arrow, finding Helo and that toaster Sharon, giving Sam her tags and promising to be back. She remembers the black Cylon doctor, and fingers her scar absently. The scar that brought forth Kacey. The scar that brought her here. She wouldn’t have left Galactica if it wasn’t for Anders. Wouldn’t have . . .

She remembers tea with Roslin, Kara bitching about Baltar’s incompetence, and Roslin’s stoic face, eyes betraying her behind her glasses. She remembers the sound of the Raiders, how familiar it was, how it almost didn’t surprise her. She remembers killing Leoben, again and again, sitting down for dinner, losing track of time.

It doesn’t surprise her when he shows up again. She knows what she must do. The world outside could be dead, everyone she loved gone. Kara was probably forgotten – hell, she had almost forgotten. Almost forgotten they used to call her Starbuck, that she was the best frakking Viper pilot in the human race.

She takes his hand.

Two can play at this game.

*

When the attack comes, he tries to leave her.

Anders finds her, Anders, Sam, Sam who is isn’t dead, is alive and kissing her and pushing her up against the wall and she knows she should be running but he isn’t dead and that means –

Kacey.

She grabs Sam’s knife and runs. She won’t leave that little girl behind to suffer. She won’t be like her mother. Kara’s all that little one has.

Kacey may have been born out of hate, out of stolen ovaries and twisted dreams of machines, but she’s part of Kara, and even now, even with Sam, it seems like that’s all she has.

*

The monkey thought ‘twas all in fun – that’s the way the money goes –

Pop . . .

*

By the sixth time, she’s learned. He’ll remember this forever, the way his eyes sparkled as he thought he won, the way she almost gagged as she choked out, “I love you.” The pressure of lips against lips, his hands on her face, she could feel how much he wanted, how long he had waited, how even as the Cylon were being driven away in defeat, he could claim victory.

He had tamed Kara Thrace.

Of course, practice makes perfect, and Kara waited until he was breathless, flushed with the thrill of the moment, and then quickly, the knife into his side.

Oh, the way his eyes widened, how he didn’t see it coming. How she won, how she twisted the knife in this synthetic gut with a deep visceral pleasure. How she wanted to watch him bleed, laugh at his face, spit on his body. But there was Kacey, and Kara didn’t know how much children remembered, only knew that at Kacey’s age she tried to forget as much as possible, only knew she didn’t want that for her own child.

And then there was Sam, and the raptor, and they were on their way back to Galactica, and everything was starting to make sense again. She could see the puzzle pieces again and played patty-cake with Kacey on the flight home.

*

Born of lies, tales of deceit.

Kara looks around the flight bay, people teeming around her.

Suddenly, she doesn’t recognize anyone.

Kacey isn’t hers. Kacey was merely a plot device, a Cylon manipulation.

She should have seen through it. She knew she destroyed that farm on Caprica, knew she wouldn’t have left things behind, but some part of her, some unknown part of her wanted to believe . . .

They are cheering for the old man. Kara wants to join in, but finds herself frozen where the woman took Kacey away. Pulling her hair, her long hair, her hair that has no place on a battlestar. She keeps tracing her lips, lips that betrayed her, that kissed the enemy. She tries to feel solace in the fact that she killed him, but she can’t, because Kara knows he never really dies.

Kara can see beyond the circle, now.

She isn’t Starbuck any longer. She’s just Kara, Kara Thrace, who married Samuel T. Anders, and grew soft on a muddy, cold, gods-forsaken planet. She doesn’t fly Vipers and she can’t remember what it feels like to be out against the stars, can’t remember the feeling of G forces pushing on her every muscle as she tried to bomb the frak out of whatever Cylon machinery faced her.

Slowly, she backs into the raptor, and waits for things to quiet down. Sam will want answers, but Kara doesn’t want to give them. Doesn’t have any to give. She was trapped, and she fought, but she lost.

She lost everything.

*

The monkey thought ‘twas all in fun –

*

She counts backwards from one thousand, plucking at her hair. When she reaches the end, when her mind gets to one, she grabs a handful of hair and pulls. A quick jerk, and she’s holding it in her hand.

It meant something to her, once. She grew her hair for a reason, but she doesn’t remember. Certainly it wasn’t practical. Always dirty on that planet, making her look soft.

Kacey’s hair was soft, blonde like Kara’s. Kacey looked like Kara. But that was all part of the plan.

She rubs the torn hair against her cheek, and hums a song, one her father used to play, one of his favorites.

She is surprised she remembers music.

*

I have no time to plead and pine, I’ve no time to wheedle. Kiss me quick and then I’m gone –

“Pop!” goes the weasel.

*

. the end .
  . send a flower .
    . pick another.
       . back to the garden gate.