Alec's less than secret journal

BSG fic: Broken Balance (chapter 65)

2008-08-04T17:26:38Z

Here you have chapter sixty-five of Broken Balance

Chapter 65
(Cottle's POV)

If the stakes weren't so damned high this whole conversation would be laughable. I mean, this is supposed to be a battlestar --the last battlestar, to be precise-- we are at war and yet I am debating the extent of a young woman's psychological scars and how she understands the concept of 'love' with both the Admiral and the CAG. Granted, Starbuck is not any young woman. She is the closest thing Bill has to a daughter, as for his son... well, let's just say that Apollo may be his father's son but I don't think he sees Starbuck as a sister and I certainly wouldn't describe his concerns as brotherly. That is part of what makes this whole thing so tricky. Unfortunately, even though I am trying my best here, this is not my specialty... in fact there are no specialists left and that is precisely the problem. Most of our knowledge went up in smoke with our worlds so, gods help us all, I am going to have to do.

"'Love is unlikely to be one of them'?" repeats Apollo, not that I was expecting him to let this go.

"Yes."

"What the frak do you mean by that?"

"I mean that in her mind rape is the norm but Leoben failed to recognize that. Think about it, she was ten years old."

"So?" he growls.

"So there's no before and after in her case," I explain before going on. "It is not the same as with an adult woman who has a frame of reference that enables her to recognize rape as an aberration to begin with, to say nothing of the fact that Jonas was a part of her life for almost two years so we are most definitely not dealing with an isolated incident here. That also explains why she doesn't have a clear concept of consent and that in turn explains why she doesn't see what the men that came after Jonas did to her as rape. Simply put, she does not have the basic tools to recognize it as such. Now, when it comes to Leoben, that works both for her and against her."

"How come?"

"Well, you have to keep in mind that this is at best a very general theory because even though we have a vague idea of what Leoben did to her, we don't have much in terms of details. Anyway, the way I see it, it works for her because chances are that even when she wasn't actively fighting Leoben, her responses were probably still atypical enough to keep him slightly off balance. You can think of it as an equation with a variable that hasn't been properly calculated. That may be analogous to what Leoben encountered and the result was that his actions were probably not resulting in the reactions he was expecting to see. Now, I don't think it was anything glaring enough to get him to change his approach but it was probably enough to lessen the effectiveness of his strategy. That is the good news. The bad news is that it works against her because, seeing how her definition of consent is badly skewed to begin with, she can't recognize coercion as rape. Add to that the fact that while she was growing up she was almost certainly bombarded with messages that equate sex with love and the end result can simply be described as a tangled mess, one that is going to be all but impossible to untangle. She didn't fight Leoben and in her mind that means it wasn't rape and that is a problem, one that is further complicated by the fact that she doesn't have a clue of where the line between rape, sex and love is supposed to be."

"But you just said that for her sex has nothing to do with love."

"It doesn't, at least not as we understand that word, but that doesn't mean she is aware of that fact," I point out.

"How can she not be aware of something like that?"

"I already told you: because she has no frame of reference, that is the key. It may be true that in her experience sex has nothing to do with love but that doesn't mean she hasn't been told countless times that both things are supposed to go together so she may not even be aware that something is missing from her experience in the first place."

"That's crazy!" he exclaims.

"Not really. It may sound crazy to you but from her perspective it all adds up because she doesn't have anything to compare it with, that is precisely the problem," I explain before going on. "Our experiences shape our expectations and our definition of what is and is not 'normal'... and the bottom line is that in her case those experiences have led to a highly abnormal --but working-- definition of 'normal'."

"But she does have a frame of reference," insists Apollo. "She is married, she was engaged, she..."

"Yes, she is married, she was engaged and that means that she does have something to compare what happened with Leoben with, and that may even have played a role in her reactions on New Caprica, but that still doesn't mean she understands what a 'loving relationship' is supposed to be or how it works nor does it mean that she has what most people would consider a normal frame of reference," I interrupt him, though I know I am going to have to be careful here because neither Adama is likely to take kindly to some of the details of what I have to say. "Think of what we learned here today. She was physically abused by her mother and sexually abused by her mother's boyfriends. That is where she is coming from. Granted, she has a husband now and she had a fiancé before that but going by what I know of Sam --and by your brother's age at the time of his death-- I don't think either one of them knew what they were up against. Chances are that they both assumed she understood what 'love' meant, just like you are doing now. Unfortunately it is an easy mistake to make, not to mention a recipe for disaster. Hell, even if on a rational level she is aware of the fact that her own experiences have been different, that still doesn't mean she is in a position to understand what those differences entail. In fact I am fairly certain that being suddenly confronted with what most of us understand by 'love', especially in a sexual context, would be enough to send that girl screaming into the night."

TBC

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, I don't own the concepts, I make no money, I make no sense and I get no sleep. This is done for fun and I promise to put the characters back where I found them once I'm done playing with them.

Thanks for reading!

BSG fic: Broken Balance (chapter 64)

2008-07-27T15:36:09Z

Here you have chapter sixty-four of Broken Balance.

click here to go back to chapter 63

Chapter 64
(Adama's POV)

As much as I may not want to admit it, I have to say that Cottle's words do make a disgusting amount of sense... the problem is that I am still struggling to come to terms with what it all means. It has simply been too much, too fast. Less than twenty-four hours ago I was completely oblivious to the details of Kara's past. Two hours ago I had some inklings as to what it was that we were dealing with but absolutely no details. Now I wish I could go back to not knowing, even as I try to figure out how I could possibly have missed something like this... and if I am having a hard time trying to wrap my mind around the implications of this thing, I don't even want to imagine how Lee is doing. Granted, except for a monumentally stupid outburst Lee has managed to keep his tongue in check but that doesn't mean this isn't hitting him and hitting him hard. I can see the anger in his eyes, I know that anger is looking for an outlet and because of that I suspect that his silence is not going to last.

"So we are just going to sit around pretending that that damage isn't there because it 'wasn't inflicted by Leoben'?" he asks before I can even finish that thought.

"No, unfortunately it is not that simple," says Cottle.

"'Unfortunately'?" he repeats.

"Yes."

"Are you crazy?!" he blurts out, with a total disregard for military protocol, however I decide to let it slide. We are here as Kara's family --not as her commanding officers-- so it wouldn't be fair to bring military discipline into this. Besides, Lee is currently the one who is spending the most time with her and the better his understanding of what we are up against is, the less likely he is going to be to make an even bigger mess out of this one. That means that he has to be allowed to ask his own questions.

"No," comes Cottle's rather predictable reply, though I don't think that is going to satisfy Lee... hell, it's not even going to satisfy me.

"Then how the frak can you say that?" growls my son, obviously not happy with that answer.

"Because it is not so simple," he insists before going on. "Yes, most of the damage was inflicted long before Leoben came along but the damage inflicted by that damn skin-job is not separate or self-contained and that means that we are going to have no choice but to address it as well."

"And that's a bad thing?" he asks, still glaring at the doctor.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because, for better or for worse, before New Caprica Starbuck had a coping mechanism, one that enabled her to function. It may not have been pretty and it may not have been healthy but it worked. The problem is that Leoben managed to breach those defenses, leaving the original damage exposed and forcing her to confront it. Yes, she knew all along what Jonas and the others had done to her, she had sort of come to terms with it years ago but chances are that as a child she didn't fully understand what it all meant. These past few months probably changed that and forced her to face it from an adult's perspective. That is what she couldn't take and that is what we are going to have one hell of a time trying to help her come to terms with. It is also what is going to make 'going back to the way things used to be' impossible. If the damage inflicted by Leoben --which is not nearly as extensive as it should have been-- had been self-contained, addressing that damage would have been relatively easy and that would have taken us back to the way things were before New Caprica, unfortunately it is not that simple... which is exactly what I said when you first asked me if we were just going to pretend that that damage wasn't there because it wasn't inflicted by Leoben."

"But if the damage inflicted by Leoben is not self-contained and we are going to have to address the damage inflicted by Jonas and the others anyway, why did you say that the good news is that the damage inflicted by Leoben is minimal?" I ask, seizing up on that apparent contradiction and hoping to find something --anything-- that would allow me to refute Cottle's words.

"Because Leoben didn't break her," he explains.

"He didn't break her? She tried to kill herself, for frak's sake!" Lee exclaims.

"I said that Leoben didn't break her but that doesn't mean she isn't 'broken'. That was precisely the point of my little analogy, in case you didn't notice," replies the doctor, openly rolling his eyes at my son. "Of course, I also said that the damage is not self-contained, that this is a mess and that the damage goes deeper than we had expected it to go but that is not the point. The point is that because he didn't take into account the damage inflicted by Jonas, Leoben made a mistake and that in turn is what is giving us an unexpected opening here."

"Leoben made a mistake?"

"Yes."

"What kind of a mistake?" I jump in, almost as desperate for a glimmer of hope as I suspect Lee is.

"He tried to used sex to convince her that he loved her and she loved him. Granted, his primary purpose was to impregnate her and in that regard sex was not optional, but that was not the extent of it and I think we all know that. The thing is that, given that chances are that Starbuck doesn't see sex as most of us do, Leoben's approach was fundamentally flawed. You see, while most of us associate sex with love, at least to a certain extent, chances are that for her those two things have nothing to do with each other. From her perspective sex can probably be about a lot of things but love is unlikely to be one of them."

click here to go to chapter 65

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, I don't own the concepts, I make no money, I make no sense and I get no sleep. This is done for fun and I promise to put the characters back where I found them once I'm done playing with them.

Thanks for reading!

BSG fic: Broken Balance (chapter 63)

2008-07-27T15:33:06Z

Here you have chapter sixty-three of Broken Balance.

click here to go back to chapter 62

Chapter 63
(Cottle's POV)

We are waiting for the Admiral to join us and I am taking advantage of the opportunity to at least try to get my thoughts in some semblance of order, something I know I am going to need in the next few minutes. Yes, the situation is bad, it would be foolish not to acknowledge that, but at the same time we may have stumbled onto an unexpected blessing here. Of course, trying to get the Adamas to see it that way is probably going to take a minor miracle and even if I can pull it off... well, let's just say that they are not going to like what I have to say and leave it at that.

I am still thinking about that when Bill finally joins us.

"How is she?" asks Apollo.

"Asleep... or at least that's what she wanted me to believe. Would you mind telling me what the frak were you thinking in there?" he growls.

"I know it was stupid, believe me, but I..."

"But what, hearing about it was more than you could take?" he snaps, glaring at his son.

"I'm sorry, but I... I was having a hard time imagining Kara..."

"I know, son, but she didn't need that sort of outburst... especially not from you."

"I know," he admits.

"So what happens now?" asks the Admiral, turning his attention to me.

"Nothing."

"'Nothing'?" he repeats.

"There is nothing for us to do," I explain.

"How can you say that?" he pushes, obviously not satisfied with that explanation.

"Because it's the truth?" I reply before adding. "This may make it a little easier for us to see what we are dealing with and to understand where she is coming from. That is definitely a good thing but our most pressing concern has to be coping with the consequences of what she's been through in these past few months and in that regard nothing has changed. This information may make a difference in terms of her long term prognosis, that is true, but even that is far from certain."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, there is bad news, worse news and even some good news, though the bad news aren't really new, the worse news are something we already suspected and the good news... let's just say that I'm not sure how good those good news are to begin with," I say with a shrug.

"Explain," Bill prompts me, and I know that the fact that he has reverted to one word commands is not a good sign.

"The bad news is that she is a mess. As I said, that's not news. The worse news is that this mess goes deeper than we had originally thought..."

"And the good news?" he prods when I trail off.

"And the good news is where things get more than a little ironic."

"Ironic?"

"To say the least. The good news is that, thanks to what she went through with Jonas and the others, the damage inflicted by Leoben may in fact turn out to be minimal."

"But you just said that the worse news are that this mess goes deeper than you expected it to go, so how can the damage be minimal?"

"Because the fact that it goes deeper may also mean that the damage we have to deal with is less extensive."

"I'm afraid I'm still not following you."

"It's fairly simple, the key to my original statement is 'the damage inflicted by Leoben'. Let me see if I can explain it a little better. Have either of you ever thrown something like a bottle of Ambrosia against a wall?" I ask.

"A couple of times," admits the Admiral, beating his son to it.

"And what happened?" I prod.

"It shattered and its content spilt," comes the rather predictable answer.

"Okay, now assume that instead of that bottle you had thrown a fistful of those resulting shards against the same wall using the same force, would the results have been the same?"

"No, of course not. The bottle would have been broken already and there would have been no contents left to spill, not to mention that shards are harder to break in the first place," he replies, obviously still not seeing what I'm getting at.

"So there would have been no additional damage?" I insist.

"I didn't say that, but the damage would certainly have been less. Some of the shards may have broken into smaller pieces but that would probably have been the extent of it."

"Exactly."

"What are you saying?" he insists, though I suspect that that is due more to the fact that he does not want to see than to his not understanding what I'm trying to tell him. The problem is that either way that means I am going to have to spell it out for him, for them... and the bottom line is that Bill is not the one who is going to have the most trouble coming to terms with that explanation.

"It's fairly simple: Leoben tried to break Starbuck and he obviously managed to do some damage but that damage was mitigated by the fact that what he was trying to break was already broken," I explain before going on. "Now, that doesn't change much in terms of what we are dealing with when it comes to Starbuck's current condition but it may mean that the long term outlook is less dire than we had expected it to be because our focus is on the damage inflicted by Leoben and that damage is in fact minimal."

"Because most of the damage was inflicted by Jonas, long before Leoben came along?" he asks, finally putting the pieces together.

"Pretty much," I reply, though I seriously doubt that that is going to be the end of this.

click here to go to chapter 64

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, I don't own the concepts, I make no money, I make no sense and I get no sleep. This is done for fun and I promise to put the characters back where I found them once I'm done playing with them.

Thanks for reading!

BSG fic: Broken Balance (chapter 62)

2008-07-11T08:03:17Z

Here you have chapter sixty-two of Broken Balance.

click here to go back to chapter 61

Chapter 62
(Cottle's POV)

I fight the urge to glare at the younger Adama but at the same time I know that --short of shooting him myself-- there is very little I can do here. Ending this conversation two minutes ago is no longer an option and trying to put an end to this now would almost certainly do Starbuck more harm than good. Of course, the fact that we are going to have to let this play out for a little longer means that I can afford to ask a couple of additional questions and in the long run that may not be such a bad thing.

"That is enough, both of you," I growl, drawing their attention to myself and hoping to minimize the damage.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean that, I..." mumbles Apollo, finally realizing what he said... or at least how it came out.

"Not now," I interrupt him.

"But I..."

"I said 'not now'," I repeat. Oh, I can see where he is coming from but at the same time I know that there's no way Starbuck would be willing to listen to what he has to say now and I am afraid that, if he were to insist in trying to make this 'better' without giving her time to calm down, he would only succeed in digging himself into a deeper hole.

"I'm sorry," he repeats and this time around I do glare at him. Yes, he is sorry but we can't afford to worry about that, not now. We have to get ourselves some answers and then we have to put an end to this.

"And what about Leoben?" I prod, trying to get things back on track and to determine just how deep does this particular bit of damage run.

"What do you mean?" she asks, sounding rather puzzled.

"Well, you said that there was a difference between Jonas and the men who came after him because you went along with them 'willingly' so I was wondering how would you describe the situation with Leoben in that regard. Where does he fit in that spectrum?"

"I don't know, I... I don't know," she trails off.

"Did you go along with him?" I push, even though I already know the answer to that particular question.

"No... at least not at first."

"But eventually you did?"

"Yes," she admits.

"Why?"

"Because there was no point in fighting him. I tried but... I... I wasn't strong enough. I couldn't beat him."

"So when it became apparent that you couldn't beat him you decided to go along with him, is that it?"

"I guess," she says with a shrug.

"And could you have beaten any of the others?" I ask.

"No, but..."

"But what?"

"But I didn't even try," she whispers.

"Why not?"

"Because I was a kid and there wasn't a frakking thing I could do about any of it!" she snaps.

"And that is precisely the point," I say, seeing an opening and hoping that she'll understand, though I know it is unlikely to be anywhere near that simple.

"What?"

"You were a kid and no matter how hard you tried, you still wouldn't have been able to fight them off. You may have gone along with them but that doesn't mean you had a choice."

"I should have tried!" she insists.

"Like you 'tried' with Leoben?"

"I guess," she says, looking away.

"There's more to it than that, isn't there?" I ask, realizing that there is something in Starbuck's story that still doesn't add up, something she isn't telling me.

"What do you mean?"

"When did you realize that you couldn't beat Leoben?" I ask but she just shrugs at that and I consider the possibility of letting this go, at least for the time being. Yes, I am well aware that we have pushed too hard already but at the same time we need to know as much as we can about what we are dealing with here and, even though I can see that she is tired and I know I should probably let this go, I also know that getting her to open up about this again would be both extremely painful and next to impossible.

"Starbuck?" I insist when she doesn't answer.

"I... I don't know... I guess I knew all along," she admits, sounding rather confused.

"But you still fought him."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because it wasn't the same... because it wasn't really about me or about what he was doing to me."

"It 'wasn't about you'?" I ask, trying to make some sort of sense out of her words.

"No, he... he wanted more."

"More?"

"Yes. It wasn't like the others... it wasn't just about frakking me... that would have been easy. I knew there was nothing I could do about that, I knew I couldn't hope to fight him in that regard but..."

"But what?"

"But he wanted more than that. He didn't just want me to stop fighting him... he... he wanted me to love him and..."

"And did you?" I push getting really worried by the scope of the damage we are dealing with.

"I don't know... I... I stopped fighting... I did what he wanted me to, so maybe I..."

"You think that the fact that you went along with him means that maybe you did?" I ask and she just nods at that, looking utterly exhausted.

"You didn't," I say... not that I expect her to believe me but knowing that we have to put an end to this and we have to do it now because Starbuck is already at the end of her rope here.

Thanks for reading!

BSG fic: Broken Balance (chapter 61)

2008-06-30T12:40:14Z

Here you have chapter sixty-one of Broken Balance.

click here to go back to chapter 60

Chapter 61
(Kara's POV)

'Frak, what do I have to say to get them to put an end to this thing once and for all?' I wonder, though I know better than to say anything out loud. Of course, I also know that even if Cottle and the Old Man were to 'put an end to it', that still wouldn't be the end of it. Lee may have been holding his piece up until now but I know him and I know that sooner or later he is going to say something... and, unlike Cottle and the Old Man, he has nowhere else he'd rather be. That means that he can afford to wait.

I am still thinking about that, wondering what the frak is Lee thinking when the Old Man's voice reminds me that the battle is anything but over and I can't afford to be caught off guard.

"Was he the only one?" he asks, the disgust clear in his voice, and I just don't know what to say at that.

"Yes, no... I..." I trail off.

"Kara?"

"It's not so frakking simple," I snap.

"Yes, it is. Were there others?"

"Yes but... it wasn't the same," I try to explain... again.

"Define 'not the same'."

"They weren't as bad. They..."

"They what?"

"I don't know," I say, feeling incredibly frustrated, especially because I know that no matter what I say now they are not going to understand and they sure as hell are not going to let this go... not that their letting this go now would do me much good.

"Try."

"Well, for starters none of the others lasted anywhere near that long and..."

"And?"

"And I knew what they wanted," I admit, feeling more than a little silly.

"Care to explain that?"

"I mean that when I was ten I didn't really understand what was going on or why Jonas was doing the things he was doing. As stupid as it may sound, I didn't know what he was getting out of it and I sure as hell didn't have a frakking clue as to what I was supposed to do."

"But by the time he left that was no longer the case," he says, not even bothering to phrase it as a question.

"No."

"So Jonas wasn't the only one?" he insists, going back to his original question.

"I guess."

"How many?" he growls but I just shrug at that.

"Kara."

"I don't know."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean I don't know. After Jonas it got better, at least for a couple of years, but then..."

"Then what?"

"Then things changed. I..." I trail off for what feels like the umpteenth time and I wonder what is it going to take for me to be able to finish a frakking sentence without getting stuck.

"What changed?"

"I guess I did," I admit before going on. "I mean, up until then most of the men mom brought home saw me as a pain in the ass but when I was about fourteen some of them started noticing me. They went from seeing me like a pain in the ass to seeing me like a nice fringe benefit. At first it used to freak me out --especially after Jonas-- but then I realized that most of them were not so bad, not as long as I went along... and I did."

"Did what?"

"Go along," I explain with a shrug, knowing that there's no point in trying to deny it.

"You didn't fight them."

"No," I reply, even though that wasn't really a question.

"And that's what you meant when you said it was not the same?" he asks and I just nod at that, looking down at my hands.

"Give me your eyes, Kara," he orders and I find myself obeying, almost against my will.

"You may have gone along with them but it was still the same."

"No, it wasn't."

"You were a kid."

"So?"

"So you shouldn't have had to fight them off in the first place," he insists.

"I don't need your frakking pity."

"It's not about pity. It's about the fact that it was wrong."

"Maybe but..."

"But what?"

"Nothing."

"Kara."

"Would you please just let this go?" I plead, even though I know I am way out of line.

"What was it, Kara?" he pushes and I realize that I've managed to paint myself into a corner here and that there's going to be no fighting my way out of the mess I just got myself into. That means that there is just one thing left for me to do: I am going to have to say it and deal with the fallout.

"It's what I did about it," I finally admit.

"What you did?"

"Yeah... by the time I was fifteen I..." I trail off again.

"You what?"

"By the time I was fifteen I was already playing pyramid," I say though, if the looks on their faces are anything to go by, that explanation is nowhere near enough so I go on. "I was getting stronger and sometimes I could even get them to back off and leave me alone but I hated it. I hated the idea of going home... and the fact that I was on the team meant that I didn't really have to."

"You didn't have to?"

"No. The fact that I was on the team meant that I was popular and that meant that there were a bunch of guys wanting to frak me so I kind of had my pick. I..."

"You what, you avoided going home by sleeping around? How the frak was that better?" Lee interrupts me, finally finding his voice and sounding utterly disgusted... not that that comes as much of a surprise.

"How about the fact that at least it was my choice, that for the first time in my life I was actually in control?" I snap. Yes, I had been waiting for him to say something and I knew chances were that it was not going to be pretty but Lee is --or at least was-- my best friend and there is a difference between expecting something and having to confront that something.

click here to go to chapter 62

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, I don't own the concepts, I make no money, I make no sense and I get no sleep. This is done for fun and I promise to put the characters back where I found them once I'm done playing with them.

Thanks for reading!

BSG fic: Broken Balance (chapter 60)

2008-06-15T13:19:02Z

Here you have chapter sixty of Broken Balance.

click here to go back to chapter 59

Chapter 60
(Lee's POV)

A part of me is still trying to figure out the implications of what Kara is saying but it's not so frakking simple. Sure, I understand her words but they just don't seem real. What she is saying is not something I ever imagined and it certainly is not something that can be easily reconciled with the almighty Starbuck but in spite of that I still can't quite quiet the little voice in the back of my mind that keeps telling me that I've failed, that I should have known somehow. She is my best friend, damn it, and yet I never knew. She never told me, she never trusted me and that hurts.

Oh, she has told me more than once since this whole thing began that this is not about trust and it is not about me and I think I am finally beginning to realize what she meant by that. Of course, I also suspect that what she meant is not exactly what she thought she meant.

Yes, I know that when she said this is not about me she was accusing me of being more than a little self-centered --and she may even have been right about that-- but I suspect that that is not the whole truth. I think Kara trusts me about as much as she can trust anyone but deep down she doesn't really know how to trust... and the fact that it's taken me this long to figure that one out does say something about how self-centered I have been. Hell, I knew how much I didn't know about her past all along but I never gave it much thought.

I knew her father had been a musician, I knew he had left when she was little and I knew that her mother was a subject that was strictly off-limits, but I never thought to wonder why and I certainly never pushed the issue.

The thing is that Kara has always been a sort of puzzle, one I have been trying to solve for a very long time and all of a sudden it is as if a bunch of additional pieces had been dumped on top of the ones I was already struggling with. That was unexpected and that has forced me to reevaluate the picture I thought I was putting together but at the same time there is no denying that they fit.

Kara was abused as a child and not just by Jonas. Oddly enough that is the part that is currently throwing me for a loop. Jonas I had been sort of expecting, I had tried to steel myself for what I knew I was going to hear about him but the role Socrata Thrace played in the whole thing is an entirely different matter, even if most of it was left unsaid.

Her mother knew what Jonas was doing and Kara knows she knew --and maybe even encouraged it-- but somehow I don't think that was the extent of it, in fact I know it was not.

Kara said that when Jonas was beating her she knew she could take it because it was not the first time she had been hit like that and she said it as if it were no big deal. For her that was just a passing statement but all of a sudden it was as if a bunch of those pieces that had never quite fit anywhere had clicked into place.

Her defense of my father had never quite made sense to me, not even after she told me about the role she had played in my brother's death. That had always been a point of contention between us, especially before the worlds ended. I remember getting mad at her for mocking my anger, an anger she seemed to think was ridiculous. It hurt, it bothered me... and now all of a sudden I have to admit that she was probably right all along because next to her mother my father has always been a frakking saint.

My childhood may not have been perfect but at least I never doubted the fact that my dad was 'safe'. He may have been away more than he was there and he may have cast a giant shadow but I knew he would never hurt me, not deliberately. Kara had no such certainty. She couldn't go home to look for comfort, she had no real escape and no one to turn to. Her mother was the one that brought Jonas into her life and there was not a frakking thing Kara could do about it. She was at their mercy... and in that regard I may even have been right when I told her that she had no control over the situation back then, just like she had no control with Simon and Leoben.

Frak, no wonder Jonas got mixed in with those bastards and no wonder Kara is such a frakking mess! I mean, back on New Caprica at least she knew there was a chance that someone would eventually get her out of that hell hole, she knew she was a prisoner but where the frak was she supposed to go when she was ten? She was a kid, she was abused in her own home --in her own frakking bed-- while her mother was there! That is the part that is bothering me. Jonas may have been a sick bastard but the bottom line is that he wasn't her father and protecting Kara wasn't supposed to be his responsibility. That duty fell squarely on Socrata Thrace's shoulders but she didn't... and, in a really twisted kind of way, that brings me back to my original problem. Her mother didn't protect her, she didn't keep her safe and as a result Kara learned early on that the only person she could trust was herself... and yet I keep asking her to trust me and getting mad at her when she doesn't.

That is something that is going to have to change... especially because it is not likely to get me anywhere. If I want her to trust me I'm going to have to take the first step and prove to her that I am 'safe'. That is not going to be easy but at least now I know what it is that I am up against ... well, part of it.

There are about a million other problems that we are also going to have to tackle, starting with Simon, Jonas and Leoben but at least now I think I've found one end of this thread... now all that's left for me to do is to try to untangle it.

click here to go to chapter 61

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, I don't own the concepts, I make no money, I make no sense and I get no sleep. This is done for fun and I promise to put the characters back where I found them once I'm done playing with them.

Thanks for reading!

BSG fic: Broken Balance (chapter 59)

2008-05-31T09:16:00Z

Here you have chapter fifty-nine of Broken Balance.

click here to go back to chapter 58

Chapter 59
(Adama's POV)

'What the frak do you say to something like that?' that is the question that keeps running through my mind, especially because it is pretty apparent that Lee is not going to say anything and Cottle is not the kind to try to offer comfort, not even under the best of circumstances. That means it is up to me but I am feeling a little lost. Oh, there is no denying that to command a battlestar you have to be more than passingly familiar with applied psychology but unfortunately that applied psychology is not of the sort that can be applied to this situation... not without doing a lot of damage. I may be Kara's CO but I am not here as her CO and even though framing it in the context of our military roles would make this easier for me, that's not what she needs.

"It's okay," I say, feeling more than a little ridiculous but not needing --or wanting-- Kara to fill in the blanks. When she doesn't reply I add, "you didn't deserve it."

"But..." she tries to argue but I interrupt her.

"Let's get one thing straight: you were ten and you were just trying to fight back and I'm damned proud of you for trying to stand up for yourself... even if there was no way you could win."

"But if I hadn't..." she insists and I have to fight the urge to shake some sense into her.

"Listen to me. You did not deserve what that bastard did to you and from what you are saying I think it's safe to say that things were already heading in that direction. Yes, by trying to bite him you probably did rush them along --I am not even going to try to deny that-- but that didn't change the final outcome. You may have been unable to see that back when you were ten but surely you can see it now," I say, grabbing her chin and forcing her to look at me. Oh, the rational part of my mind knows that Kara's can be described as an almost textbook response and that getting her to understand that it wasn't her fault is not going to be easy but that doesn't mean I am not going to try.

"it hurt," she whispers, pulling away and looking down at her hands. It is such a simple statement.

"I know," I reply, throwing a quick look at Lee and I am not surprised to see my son looking more than a little green, though he doesn't seem to be inclined to say anything. That means that at least I don't have to worry about him accidentally opening a second front here and that is definitely a good thing. Unfortunately it also means that I can expect no help from him and the truth is that right now I could use some backing.

"So I guess it is safe to say that this tendency of yours to bite more than you can chew is not exactly a new trait?" I ask, hoping that a bit of inappropriate humor will keep Kara from withdrawing further into herself.

"You could say that," she snorts.

"And that went on for almost two years?" I prod, relieved by her reaction and trying to get this conversation back on track.

"Yes. I kept waiting for him to leave. None of my mom's other boyfriends had ever lasted anywhere near that long. They were usually gone in a matter of weeks, some may have lasted as much as a couple of months but then again Jonas..." she trails off.

"Jonas wasn't really there because of your mother, was he?"

"Not really. I mean, he made sure my mom had as much to drink as she wanted, that there was food on the table even when she wasn't working, unlike most of the losers she brought home he never hit her, didn't care if she slept around... as far as she was concerned he was the perfect man for her," she explains and I can help but to see red at that. Oh, I knew Kara's childhood had been far from perfect. I had managed to get my hands on a copy of Socrata Thrace's military file long before the colonies were destroyed and I had watched the video from Kara's questioning of Leoben. I knew what he had told her about her being born to a woman who believed in suffering so she had suffered and I had seen her reaction to that particular statement but I had never really allowed myself to contemplate exactly what it was that Leoben had meant by that.

"Did she know?" I force myself to ask, hoping that she'll understand and feeling almost literally sick at the thought. I may not have been the best of fathers but at least I can honestly say that I tried to keep my children safe.

"I don't know. I never told her but..." she trails off.

"But you suspect she did?" I finish for her, her hesitation having already all but answered my question.

"Yes... maybe. She once warned me that I'd be sorry if he left," she explains, chewing on her lower lip.

"And eventually he did?"

"Yeah. He kind of lost interest in me and took off when I got too old for his liking."

"Too old?" I repeat, wondering what the frak she could possibly mean by that.

"He was really grossed out when I first got my period. He left about a week after that," she explains with a shrug and I can't help but to cringe at the reminder of just how painfully young she was when she was deemed to be 'too old' by that bastard.

click here to go to chapter 60

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, I don't own the concepts, I make no money, I make no sense and I get no sleep. This is done for fun and I promise to put the characters back where I found them once I'm done playing with them.

Thanks for reading!

BSG fic: Broken Balance (chapter 58)

2008-05-25T13:30:02Z

Here you have chapter fifty-eight of Broken Balance.

click here to go back to chapter 57

Chapter 58
(Kara's POV)

I eye Lee, Cottle and the Old Man warily as they march into my room, looking remarkably like a firing squad.

"What do you want to know?" I ask, trying to keep them from seeing just how freaked I am.

"What happened with Jonas?" asks Cottle, who will probably be the hardest one to deflect.

"You already know," I growl, not wanting to talk about it... not that anyone is asking for my opinion here. I guess I should be grateful that there are no buckets in sight but that doesn't mean that this is going to be fun or that this is not an interrogation.

"Not enough."

"'Not enough'?"

"No, what did he do?" he insists.

"He molested me, want me to draw you a frakking picture?" I snap... so much for keeping them from realizing how freaked I am.

"Kara," warns the Old Man.

"What?"

"Don't," he says, shaking his head, and I can't help but to cringe at that because the truth is that I do know what they mean, I know what they want to know and I know that in the end I'm going to tell them. The problem is that my every instinct is rebelling against what I have to do here. I have only been cornered into talking about this once before and that was a very long time ago.

"The first time it got bad I was ten..." I begin before trailing off, not quite sure of how to proceed. Yes, I know I have to tell them, and I know they are not going to enjoy this any more than I will, but that doesn't mean I'm looking forward to it.

"What do you mean by 'the first time it got bad'?" prods the Admiral.

"Well, I kind of had it coming, to tell you the truth but..."

"You 'had it coming'?" he interrupts me, looking almost confused at that.

"Yes."

"Believe me, you didn't," he says, shaking his head.

"Yes, I did," I insist.

"What happened?" he asks and I'm relieved to see him dropping that particular issue, not that I am naive enough to think that that was the end of it.

"When I was ten my mom started 'dating' Jonas and after she had passed out sometimes he would come into my room. It wasn't every night or anything like that but..."

"What did he do?"

"Not much, at least not at first. Sometimes he would touch me, usually he would make me touch him. It used to creep me out but he wasn't really the first one to do that and seeing how he wasn't beating the crap out of me I figured it could be worse," I explain, just wanting to get this over with but knowing that we still have a very long way to go. "Anyway, one night he came in, sat on my bed and made me kneel in front of him. He wanted me to give him a blow job. I was ten frakking years old, I had never done anything remotely like that and I thought it was gross. I felt like I was choking and I just wanted to get away but he was holding my head down and no matter how hard I tried I just couldn't break his hold. I didn't really know what to do so I did the only thing I could think of: I bit him... or tried to. I was too freaked to bite hard enough to do any real damage so the only thing I managed to do was to royally piss him off but it startled him enough to cause him to let go and I was finally able to pull away... I was so relieved but he wasn't done with me, not by a long shot. At first he just started beating me. It was bad but it wasn't like I had never been hit like that before so I knew I could take it and I figured it was worth it but then..."

"Kara?" prods the Old Man, reaching for my hand.

"All of a sudden he just stopped and then he told me he was going to teach me a lesson."

"What did he do?" he asks gently.

"He threw me on the bed, pulled off my panties and stuffed them in my mouth. I managed to spit them out but... he said that I was going to learn to keep my teeth to myself and then he..." I trail off again,Ê knowing that this is it, that there is no turning back and that they will never look at me in the same way again.

click here to go chapter 59

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, I don't own the concepts, I make no money, I make no sense and I get no sleep. This is done for fun and I promise to put the characters back where I found them once I'm done playing with them.

Thanks for reading!

BSG fic: Broken Balance (chapter 57)

2008-05-17T09:36:55Z

Here you have chapter fifty-seven of Broken Balance.

click here to go back to chapter 56

Chapter 57
(Kara's POV)

'And here we go again', that is the thought that keeps running through my mind when I realize that Lee is fidgeting and looking decidedly uncomfortable. I know him and I know that he is tap-dancing around the gods know what. That is never a good thing but right now I am drawing a blank when it comes to figuring out why.

"Okay, why do I get the feeling that I am not going to like this?" I ask after what feels like ages when it becomes apparent that Lee is not going to bring it up... whatever it is that 'it' turns out to be.

"Because you are not?" he replies, not that that is much of an answer.

"What the frak is that supposed to mean?"

"I did something, something you are not going to like. I..."

"Would you just spit it out?" I growl when he trails off.

"I was talking to dad and Cottle and..."

"And?"

"And I said something, something I probably shouldn't have."

"What the frak did you say?" I insist, not liking Lee's hesitation in the least.

"I mentioned that you were having some pretty serious nightmares... and I let slip Jonas's name," he admits.

"You what?!" I exclaim, knowing that this is bad, very bad, and that if Lee is aware of just how bad this is then chances are that 'someone' clued him in on why it was that Jonas got mixed in with Simon and Leoben... and that in order to clue Lee in, that 'someone' had to have figured it out himself first.

"I let slip Jonas's name," he repeats.

"Damn it, Lee, how could you?" I ask.

"Oh, no. No way you are pinning this one on me," he mutters, glaring at me and not backing down an inch.

"No frakking 'pinning' involved. You told them!"

"Yes, I did and I'm really sorry about that but the bottom line is that if you had told me the whole truth I wouldn't have and you know it!"

"Are you saying that this is my fault somehow?"

"No, damn it, but..."

"But what?"

"But why didn't you tell me?"

"Tell you?" I ask, deciding to play it safe. Oh, I am fairly certain I know what he means but I'm not one hundred percent sure and as far as I'm concerned there's no point in taking a chance on him bluffing the truth out of me.

"That you were molested by that bastard!" he blurts out and all of a sudden I find myself wishing that he would just go back to tap-dancing around the issue, if only because that made my own tap-dancing easier.

"Because I didn't want you to know and because it was none of your frakking business, that's why!" I growl, knowing that trying to deny it would mean openly lying to him and that that's a line I'm not willing to cross... not to mention that it probably wouldn't do me much good anyway.

"I thought we were supposed to be friends!"

"So?"

"What do you mean 'so'?"

"I mean that we may be friends now but this whole thing with Jonas happened a very long time ago, long before we met, and there was no frakking point in telling you about it!"

"No frakking point?"

"No, damn it! It happened, I got over it, end of story... besides, when the frak was I supposed to bring it up, before or after CAP?"

"How about when you told me about your nightmares? You told me that the problem was that you were not in control, for frak's sake!"

"No, I didn't."

"You didn't?"

"No. You said that. I just chose not to contradict you, that's all," I remind him.

"'That's all'?" he repeats, with more than a hint of anger in his voice.

"Yes, damn it! I mean, what else do you want me to say?"

"I don't know!" he snaps.

"That sure clears things up."

"I just want you to trust me!"

"I do."

"You sure have a funny way of showing it," he mutters.

"How many times do I have to tell you that it is not about trust... and it sure as hell is not abut you either?" I snap, more than a little fed up with the whole situation.

"So will you talk to me now?" he insists and I have to fight the urge to roll my eyes at that.

"No."

"'No'?" he repeats, glaring at me.

"No, damn it! You told Cottle and the Old Man, didn't you?" I ask.

"And what the frak does that have to do with anything?"

"How about the fact that I'm not frakking doing this twice? I know them and if I were to tell you now I would still have to tell them later and seeing how there's no way in hell I'm doing that you are just going to have to frakking wait," I growl, not happy with the situation at all but well aware that there's no way I'm getting out of this one, not this time around. I might have been able to deflect Lee if it had been just him but I know Cottle, I know the Old Man and I know they are not going to let it drop so the only question is how hard am I going to fight them, how painful am I going to make this for myself.

click here to go to chapter 58

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, I don't own the concepts, I make no money, I make no sense and I get no sleep. This is done for fun and I promise to put the characters back where I found them once I'm done playing with them.

Thanks for reading!

BSG fic: Broken Balance (chapter 56)

2008-05-10T16:29:31Z

Here you have chapter fifty-six of Broken Balance.

click here to go back to chapter 55

Chapter 56
(Cottle's POV)

Well, at least it looks like both Apollo and the Old Man are finally starting to move past the 'shoot the messenger' phase, something this particular 'messenger' can certainly appreciate.

"We are going to have to talk to her about it," says Bill, sounding rather resigned.

"Yes, and you can pretty much count on her fighting us every step of the way," I warn him.

"She is going to kill me, isn't she?" groans Apollo.

"I don't think it will come to that."

"Would you at least let me talk to her first, give her some sort of heads up before you confront her? I mean, this is my mess so I should be the one to clean it up."

"I'll make sure to have a bed waiting for you," I say, shaking my head. I mean, I know viper pilots have a tendency to take stupid chances --after all no one with a reasonably developed sense of self-preservation would willingly step into the cockpit of one of those blasted things-- but even then I think that this may be taking things a little too far... though I can certainly understand where it is that Apollo is coming from.

"Don't even joke about it," he says, glaring at me.

"Believe me son, I'm not joking. I said that she probably won't kill you but that doesn't mean she is not going to hurt you. I can tell you that she is going to be pissed and a pissed Starbuck can be a dangerous thing."

"I know but I still have to do this."

"Just be careful. This is going to come out of nowhere as far as she is concerned and it is going to be a major shock."

"And that's why I want to do this, so that she doesn't feel like she just stepped into a frakking ambush," he insists.

"I get that and you may give her a heads up if you want but I'm not sure how much good that's going to do her... especially because I don't think letting her stew in it would do anyone any good. You may give her a heads up but we won't be putting this off because of that. We are going to have this talk with her and we are going to have it as soon as you are done," I warn him.

"But shouldn't we..."

"No," I interrupt him, already knowing what he is going to say. "I know that may seem harsh and I know you want to spare her but the fact is that you can't. The bottom line is that this confrontation is not going to get any easier no matter what we do and because of that putting it off would only serve to prolong the agony... in fact the less of a heads up that she has, the less of a chance she is going to have to rebuild her defenses and the less painful this is going to be in the long run."

"I hate this," he mutters.

"Yes, well, no one ever said that this was going to be easy. This is a mess -- and a toxic and foul smelling one at that-- and cleaning up a mess is, almost by definition, a messy experience," I remind him, even though that is only part of the problem here. The other part is, well... them. I know we can't put this off, I know this is something we are going to have to deal with but at the same time it is still too new as far as they are concerned and that can make this even worse.

I mean, right now I think I have a better shot at predicting what Starbuck's initial reaction is going to be than at predicting how the two of them are going to take it and I hate having so many frakking variables. I don't know what Kara is going to tell us --that is the big unknown-- I don't know how they are going to take it and I sure as hell don't know how Starbuck is going to react to their reactions. At times it feels almost as if I were juggling three patients at once here and, even though having multiple patients is something I am used to, having their progress be directly dependent on that of the other is not.

Even during an epidemic, when stopping the contagion itself is the top priority, each patient's progress remains independent of that of the others but that is not the case here. Right now my main concern has to do with the fact that any one of them could easily trigger a cascading effect... and even though I think I can trust Bill to keep his reactions to himself, the younger Adama is a different story altogether.

He loves her but at the same time she knows exactly which buttons to push to keep him at arm's length and I know that when it comes to this she is going to fight us with everything she's got. That can be a deadly combination especially because even though Starbuck is all but back, Kara still has a very long way to go. That means that we have to add yet another factor to what is already a fairly complicated equation, a factor that is specifically known for its unpredictability.

click here to go to chapter 57

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, I don't own the concepts, I make no money, I make no sense and I get no sleep. This is done for fun and I promise to put the characters back where I found them once I'm done playing with them.

Thanks for reading!

BSG fic: Broken Balance (chapter 55)

2008-05-03T14:13:03Z

Here you have chapter fifty-five of Broken Balance.

click here to go back to chapter 54

Chapter 55
(Adama's POV)

"Jonas?" I repeat, having never even heard her mention that name before.

"Yeah... from what she told me she didn't like him but, seeing how her mom did, she was stuck living with him anyway."

"Is that what she told you?" prods Cottle and something in the way he is looking at Lee alerts me to the fact that he is up to something so, even though I have several questions I am itching to ask, I allow him to take the lead.

"Basically."

"Do you remember what she said, what her exact words were?" he insists.

"She just said that he was one of the many losers her mom used to date when she was growing up, one that stayed for a lot longer than the others. She didn't like him and she wanted him gone but there was nothing she could do about it. She told me that he lived with them for almost two years, from the time she was ten to the time she was twelve," Lee explains with a shrug.

"So that relationship lasted for a fairly long time, especially from a child's perspective?"

"Twenty-two months, why?"

"And she didn't give any additional explanation? She didn't say why she didn't like him or why he got mixed in with Simon and Leoben in her mind in the first place?" insists Cottle, not even acknowledging Lee's question.

"Not really. I guess it was because it was something she couldn't control, something she couldn't escape... just like she couldn't escape Simon and Leoben down on New Caprica. She may have wanted this 'Jonas' gone with everything she had but, seeing how she was just a kid, she was basically at his mercy."

"'At his mercy'? Is that what she said?" Cottle pushes.

"No, it's just an expression... one I never even used in her presence," says Lee, rather defensively and somewhat taken aback by the doc's vehemence.

"So those are your words, not hers?"

"I guess, but when I explained it along those lines she didn't contradict me, why?"

"Because I suspect that your little 'expression' may be closer to the truth than you realize."

"What the frak is that supposed to mean?" Lee blurts out even as I realize what it is that Cottle is not saying.

"You are not suggesting that..." I begin before trailing off, not even wanting to say the words. This is my 'daughter', damn it, and just thinking about it is enough to make me want to kill someone.

"It would certainly explain a lot... and not just about her recent behavior," he points out.

"But..." I say, wanting to argue, even though deep down I can't help but to acknowledge that he does have a point, that it would explain a lot.

"But you don't want it to be so?" he asks and I glare at him because he is right. I don't want it to be true but I suspect it is.

"He doesn't want what to be so?" Lee interrupts us, sounding more than a little puzzled and I realize that I am going to have to explain it to him... and that in order to do that I'm going to have no choice but to say it.

"He means that we can't quite dismiss the possibility that Kara may have been molested by this 'Jonas', son," I explain, just wanting to get this over with.

"WHAT?!"

"I said that..."

"I heard you but..."

"But what?"

"But that is crazy! She was just a kid! She was ten frakking years old when that bastard moved in with them!" he exclaims, shaking his head.

"So?" asks Cottle, who has never been all that fond of sugarcoating the truth in the first place.

"'So'?" Lee repeats, glaring at the doctor and not even trying to keep the anger out of his voice.

"Yes, 'so?' I know you and you are not that naive."

"No, but..."

"But this is Kara? But this is wrong?"

"Yes, damn it!"

"And do you honestly believe that just because it is Kara and because it is wrong it didn't happen?"

"No, but..."

"But you still don't want it to be true?"

"No," Lee replies, even though I can see his denial crumbling before my eyes... not that mine is doing much better. The problem is that, regardless of whether Cottle is right or not, we are still going to have to confront this thing somehow and that is not going to be pretty, to say nothing of the fact that --especially if he is right-- this is bound to make an even bigger mess out of Kara's recovery.

We had a plan, we had a strategy, we thought we knew what it was that we were up against and we had been making progress but this latest revelation is now threatening to cause us to have to reevaluate everything. Oh, on a rational level I know that this is not a new development and that in the long term this may actually turn out to be a good thing, that dealing with what Kara went through on New Caprica while letting something like this fester underneath would probably have come back to bite us eventually but right now I'm not in the mood to be rational or look at things on the bright side, to say nothing of the fact that in the short term the situation just got a lot more complicated. Frak, even if Cottle turns out to be wrong about this we are still going to have to figure out a way to broach the subject with her before we can do anything else and that is bound to be tricky. She is the only one who can tell us if we are on the right track but she is not the most approachable person, not even under the best of circumstances... and the fact remains that these are anything but the best of circumstances.

click here to go to chapter 56

Thanks for reading!

BSG fic: Broken Balance (chapter 54)

2008-04-29T09:31:06Z

Here you have chapter fifty-four of Broke Balance.

click here to go back to chapter 53

Chapter 54
(Lee's POV)

Is it just me or there is something wrong with this whole scene? I mean, I understand why Cottle insists on these little get-togethers to discuss Kara's progress, I understand the need to present a unified front when dealing with her and so on but at the same time... well, at the same time I can't help but to feel that she should be included in some way. After all, it is still her life.

The problem is that, even though we are here mostly as Kara's family, this is still a battlestar. There is also a military chain of command that has to be taken into account and I am all too aware of what my place in that particular pecking order happens to be. I am supposed to do as I'm told, keep my mouth shut and not speak unless I'm spoken to... and, seeing how so far no-one seems to be too interested in what I have to say, I am basically stuck.

"Well, for starters I want her out of here for a few hours a day," says Cottle, pulling me out of my musings.

"Isn't it too soon?" asks my father, sounding far from convinced... not that he is the only one who has some misgivings.

"Oh, from a physical perspective she is more than ready to handle it. The problem is that right now she is still in hiding and that is the next thing we are going to have to tackle."

"In hiding?"

"Essentially. When I decided to put her in a private room my idea was to give her a safe place to heal and it has worked, in fact it has worked a little too well and that is getting to be a problem. Even though hers is far from the first suicide attempt we have had to deal with and she knows it, there is still a sense of shame about it. She is understandably reluctant to face the rest of the crew and as long as she feels safe in here she has no reason to do it at all. That means that we are going to have to give her a little nudge."

"What kind of nudge?"

"Some incentive to get out of here," explains the doctor. "I have been adding some of her friends to her visitors list, whether she wants them there or not, but it's been a battle and I think she is ready for some limited exposure to a less controlled environment. For the time being I want her to go back to eating in the mess at least once a day."

"But the mess..."

"Is a mess. It is loud and chaotic, I know and that's why I want someone to be there with her to run interference, at least until the rest of the crew can get used to seeing her around but at the same time she no longer has any dietary restrictions so there is no medical reason for her not to go back to eating with everyone else. In addition to that I was also wondering if it would be possible for you to use her for a couple of hours three or four times a week in the CIC."

"CIC?" dad repeats, sounding a little surprised.

"Well, she is nowhere near strong enough to handle a maintenance shift just yet, not even a partial one, and I don't think she is emotionally ready to deal with a new batch of nuggets but she is well enough to study or do some paperwork," explains Cottle. "The problem is that neither study nor paperwork are likely to help us get her out of here and that is my top priority so..."

"So you were thinking that CIC could be a good alternative," dad finishes for him and I can't help but to cringe at the thought.

"Something like that."

"I'll see what I can do" says my dad before turning his attention to me. "What is it, Lee?"

"CIC," I reply, not wanting to explain but knowing that I'm going to have to.

"What about it?"

"Dee is bound to be there," I remind them.

"So?"

"So that may make it more than a little awkward for Kara and that could be a problem."

"Well, seeing how she is only going to be there for a couple of hours at a time, it shouldn't be too hard to arrange them around Dualla's schedule."

"Thanks."

"So I take it that the two of you still haven't worked things out?"

"To tell you the truth I'm not even sure that there's anything left for us to work out in the first place," I admit with a sigh and not really wanting to talk about my marriage.

"I'm sorry, son," says my father.

"It's not your fault."

"And you are still staying with Kara?"

"Yes. I'm not ready to go back to the pilot's quarters and... well, the truth is that I sleep better when I can keep an eye on her," I say rather awkwardly. "I mean, I know I can't do much but..."

"Do much?" asks my father, not quite understanding what I mean by that.

"She is having some pretty serious nightmares," I explain.

"What, you were expecting her to have pleasant dreams?" snorts Cottle, shaking his head.

"Excuse me?"

"I think he means that considering everything Kara's been through, some nightmares are to be expected, son."

"I know, or at least the rational part of my mind does. I just wish I could do something about it. I feel so frakking useless..." I mutter.

"There's nothing you can do. Her nightmares are just one of those things she is going to have no choice but to deal with," says the doctor.

"And another reason to keep her out of her old bunk for the foreseeable future?" I ask.

"Unless we can arrange for her to be assigned private quarters on something remotely resembling a permanent basis, I'm afraid so. She is a proud woman and I don't want to take a chance that she will say something in her sleep that will alert her bunkmates to the details of what she's been through."

"She is not really talking in her sleep," I reassure them. "I mean, she does whimper sometimes and she has woken up screaming more than once but that is about it."

"Still, the fact that it hasn't happened doesn't mean that it won't and, considering what's at stake, I'd rather not take any chances," insists Cottle. "She is stuck in the Galactica. She has nowhere to go and if word of this were to get out, that could make facing the rest of the crew almost unbearable for her."

"And has she told you anything about those nightmares?" asks my dad, looking at me.

"Not much."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning that I did try to get her to talk to me about it a few days ago but she didn't go into much detail and I didn't want to push," I admit before adding. "She just said that she couldn't even close her eyes without seeing 'them'."

"'Them'?" repeats my father.

"Leoben, Simon... and one of her mom's old boyfriends, some guy named Jonas, I think."

click here to go to chapter 55

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, I don't own the concepts, I make no money, I make no sense and I get no sleep. This is done for fun and I promise to put the characters back where I found them once I'm done playing with them.

Thanks for reading!

BSG fic: Broken Balance (chapter 53)

2008-04-19T13:35:28Z

Here you have chapter fifty-three of Broken Balance.

click here to go back to chapter 52

Chapter 53
(Cottle's POV)

"What the frak were you thinking?" I ask as soon as I walk into my office, glaring at Anders and not happy about the mess we are going to have to clean up now. Starbuck had been doing reasonably well up until now... the problem is that annoying little 'had'.

"I was doing what I thought was best," he growls, glaring right back at me.

"What you thought was best?" I repeat.

"Yes, damn it!"

"And you didn't think maybe you should have talked to me before taking it upon yourself to upend Starbuck's world yet again?"

"No, I didn't. As far as I'm concerned our marriage is none of your business."

"She is my patient and she is still under my care. That makes it my business," I remind him. "We have to present a unified front if we want to help her and you sure as hell can't just spring something like this on her out of nowhere, not without running it by me first. The last thing she needs right now is for us to be working at cross-purposes from each other."

"Yeah, right!" he snorts.

"What the frak is that supposed to mean?"

"It means that you keep talking about presenting a 'unified front' but when it comes down to it, you always end up leaving me out of it," he replies. "She is my wife, damn it, but Apollo had all but moved in with her long before you allowed me as much as a supervised visit... and it's only been a couple of days since I was allowed to spend a few hours with her without a frakking chaperone so don't you dare come to me talking about some gods-damned 'unified front' now!"

"I'm sorry, son, but Starbuck was in no shape to..." I begin but he interrupts me.

"Oh, believe me, I know all too well what kind of shape she was in, I know she didn't want to see me and I also know I messed up. You don't have to remind me of why you banned me from her side but..." he trails off.

"But what?"

"But you could still have warned me," he whispers.

"Warned you?"

"Yes, damn it! I mean I know I'm not military and I sure as hell am not a frakking Adama but she is my wife and if only your 'unified front' would have included something as simple as letting me know what the frak was going on with her then maybe I wouldn't have had to hand her those frakking papers in the first place!"

"Do you really believe it is that simple?" I ask, openly shaking my head at that. Oh, I understand where he is coming from but at the same time I also know that the moment we start blaming each other we'll be in trouble.

"What the frak is that supposed to mean?" he growls, obviously not wanting to face the facts.

"You know what it means."

"I don't know, damn it! I mean, I know I had already screwed up by the time she..." he trails off.

"By the time she tried to kill herself?" I volunteer when it becomes apparent that he is not going to say it.

"Yes... but if I had known then I wouldn't have..." he begins but I interrupt him.

"Let me guess: if you had known you wouldn't have tried to kiss her when she first woke up and then maybe I wouldn't have had to ban you from her side and the two of you would have lived happily ever after, is that it?"

"Maybe, I don't know... I'll never know. That is the frakking point!" he all but yells at me.

"You may be right when you say I should have warned you and you may even have a point when you say that if I had maybe you wouldn't have felt it was necessary for you to hand her those papers today, but do you honestly believe that if you had known the final outcome of this whole thing would have been all that different?"

"I don't know --I'll never know-- but we would at least have had a chance, damn it!" he snaps.

"No, you wouldn't have, and you know it," I say, not willing to take the full blame for this one... even though I know he is not completely wrong when he says that some of my own decisions may well have had something to do with the way in which this whole thing played out... that by letting Apollo in while keeping him out I may well have put the final nail in their marriage's coffin but the thing is that I wouldn't have done it if that hadn't been what she wanted... what she needed.

"What the frak is that supposed to mean?"

"You know what it means."

"No, I dont. Why don't you spell it out for me?" he asks, almost daring me to fill in the blanks.

"How about the fact that your marriage was doomed from the moment the cylons showed up?" I ask, not willing to back down. "You are right, you are not military and you are not an Adama... but you are leaving out the fact that she is Starbuck and that is the real problem here because Starbuck is most definitely military and --even if it is not by blood-- she is also an Adama."

"She is my wife, damn it!"

"Yes, but long before she became your wife she was already Starbuck and Starbuck is always going to be one half of Starbuck and Apollo. That is the one thing you can't compete against. Maybe on New Caprica, where she could afford to be just Kara and Apollo was nowhere to be found, the two of you would have stood a chance but here on the Galactica that was never going to be the case. Sooner or later you would have lost her no matter what you did and I think you know it."

click here to go to chapter 54

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, I don't own the concepts, I make no money, I make no sense and I get no sleep. This is done for fun and I promise to put the characters back where I found them once I'm done playing with them.

Thanks for reading!

BSG fic: Broken Balance (chapter 52)

2008-04-12T10:28:38Z

Here you have chapter fifty-two of Broken Balance.

click here to go back to chapter 51

Chapter 52
(Kara's POV)

'I guess I should have seen this coming,' that is the first thought that runs through my mind as soon as I manage to do anything but stare stupidly at the papers I hold in my hand. I mean, I sure as hell don't blame Sam and I know that this is no less than what I deserve but still...

"Divorce?" I manage to choke out.

"Yes."

"Why?" I ask, even though it's not all that hard to figure it out. It is because Sam is disgusted by me. It's because I was a frakking skinjob's whore for four frakking months and he knows it. Yes, I can't even pretend that I don't understand why he wants out of this marriage but still...

"Because..." he begins before trailing off.

"Because of what I did?" I ask, biting by lip.

"'What you did'?" he repeats.

"Don't play the fool, Sam!"

"I'm not 'playing the fool', damn it, I just don't have a frakking clue as to what the hell you mean by that!"

"Yeah, right!" I snort.

"Damn it, Kara!"

"So you expect me to believe that you are not dumping me because I was Leoben's whore?" I growl, knowing that he is not going to say it and not really wanting to keep tap dancing around the issue.

"Are you frakking crazy?"

"What do you think?"

"Do you honestly believe that I...?"

"Yes!" I all but yell at him.

"Then you really are crazy! Damn it, Kara, you were that frakking skinjob's prisoner for four frakking months, you had no control over the situation at all and no-one here thinks of you as 'Leoben's whore'!"

"Then why don't you want me?"

"Oh, I want you but..." he lies.

"I get it," I say, looking away as I try to keep my emotions under control.

"I don't think you do," he contradicts me... as if it were possible to misunderstand what it means to be presented with frakking divorce papers.

"I think it's pretty clear and you are right, I..." I begin but he interrupts me.

"Damn it, Kara, that's not it!" he exclaims without even letting me finish that thought.

"It's not?"

"No, damn it. Believe me, I want you. I want you more than anything but..."

"Then why?" I ask, just wanting this whole frakking thing to make some sort of sense.

"Because I love you but you can barely stand to be in the same frakking room with me, that's why!" he says before explaining. "It's not that I don't want you. I want you more than anything but if I were to use our vows to force you to stay with me when you can't even stand my touch I would be no better than Leoben. This is not about cutting you loose, and it sure as hell is not about me not wanting you, it is about setting you free!"

"I just need a little more time, that's all," I plead.

"Time?"

"Yes. I know you are mad at me and I understand but I tried, I really did..."

"And that is precisely the problem, that you didn't trust me enough to tell me to go frak myself, that you felt you had to force yourself to 'try'," he interrupts me. "If you didn't want me to touch you, if you wanted me to back off why the hell didn't you just say so?"

"I couldn't," I admit.

"You couldn't?"

"No, I... I no longer had the right," I try to explain, even though I know Sam is not going to understand.

"'You no longer had the right'? What the frak is that supposed to mean?"

"You are my husband and I..."

"And you didn't think you could say 'no' to me, is that it?"

"Yes... no... I don't know... I..." I trail off, feeing incredibly confused.

"You what?"

"I couldn't say no, I didn't have the right... not after I let Leoben..."

"Gods, Kara, are you even listening to yourself? Do you have any idea of just how frakking crazy that sounds?"

"No, why don't you tell me?" I challenge.

"Damn it, Kara, you didn't 'let' Leoben do anything! What part of 'there was nothing else you could have done' don't you understand?"

"It's not so frakking simple!"

"And that's the first thing you have said here that actually makes some sense. No, it's not simple but..."

"But you still want out?" I ask, wanting to put an end to this conversation and knowing that in the end that is what this whole thing boils down to.

"No, I already told you, I don't want out."

"Then why...?" I begin but he interrupts me.

"Because it's what you need, that's why!"

"'What I need' is a little more time, that's all!" I insist, even though I already know he is not going to change his mind.

"And that is precisely the point. You can have as much time as you want, believe me, I have nowhere else I'd rather be and I sure as hell am not going anywhere... in fact the only thing I want is for you to give me a chance to win you back but I want it to be your choice and as long as we remain married, as long as you feel that being with me is your duty and that you can't say 'no' to me, it is not going to be," he explains and even though a part of me can see what it is that Sam is trying to do, the rest of me can't focus on anything but the word 'divorce' that seems to be mocking me from those papers.

Sure, on a rational level I can tell that our marriage is done for --hell, if I were to be honest with myself I would have to admit that our marriage was a frakking mistake from the get go-- and that in that regard getting a divorce is the most logical thing to do but at the same time it still goes against everything I believe in and I am having a hard time trying to wrap my mind around the idea.

click here to go to chapter 53

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, I don't own the concepts, I make no money, I make no sense and I get no sleep. This is done for fun and I promise to put the characters back where I found them once I'm done playing with them.

Thanks for reading!

BSG fic: Broken Balance (chapter 51)

2008-04-05T13:53:59Z

Here you have chapter fifty-one of Broken Balance.

click here to go back to chapter 50

Chapter 51
(Sam's POV)

I am fidgeting nervously with the envelope I hold in my hands as I approach Kara's room. Sure, deep down I know that this is the right thing for me to do but knowing that is not really much comfort, not under the circumstances. This is a pretty big step, one that is going to change our lives forever and --to make matters worse-- I know how strongly Kara feels about this particular issue, I know what her beliefs are and I know she is not going to take it well.

"Hi, how are you?" I ask, being careful to stay at least five feet away from her as I do whenever I visit her. Granted, Kara doesn't seem to be as nervous around me as she was a couple of days ago but some awkwardness remains and I refuse to take any unnecessary chances.

"Okay, I guess," she replies, shrugging her shoulders though I can see that she is upset about something.

"You sure?" I prod, wishing that she would trust me but still not daring to push.

"Yeah," she whispers and --even though I know she is being less than candid-- I decide to let it drop.

"So what are you reading?" I ask, still not ready to deal with 'the envelope' and noticing a rather thick tome on her bed.

"A manual on military theory."

"Interesting?"

"If your idea of interesting is something along the lines of watching the paint dry then it is absolutely fascinating, otherwise it is about as interesting as watching the paint dry... to say nothing of the fact that the frakking thing is at best completely useless and at worst it can be downright deadly. As far as I can tell it is pretty much a guide of what not to do," she mutters, glaring at it and wrinkling her nose in disgust.

"I take it that this was not your idea then?" I ask, even though I already know it wasn't... it's just not in her nature.

"Hell no, this is just the Old Man's latest attempt at keeping me busy."

"It can't be that bad."

"It's not that bad, it's worse... a lot worse. The cylons have spent decades studying our every move and I think it is safe to say that they know everything there is to know about our military theory. Considering that countless trees were slaughtered to print tens of thousands of copies of that blasted thing before the colonies were destroyed, you can bet that the damned toasters are intimately familiar with it. That means that relying on it in any way at all would pretty much guarantee that we would get our asses kicked the next time we went up against them. If we want to stay one step ahead of the cylons then the first thing we have to do is to throw the book away... literally."

"And have you told the Admiral that?"

"I tried to but he basically told me to get over it. He said that if you want to break the law you must first know the law."

"He may have a point there."

"Oh, I know he does and I'm not denying that but the frakking thing is still boring as hell and I don't have to like it," she says crossing her arms and glaring at me in an all too familiar gesture... one that has me fighting to keep a smile off my face. Yes, I am not fooling myself and I know Kara still has a very long way to go before she is anywhere near back to normal but for the first time in what feels like ages I am seeing a glimpse of the woman I fell in love with and that is incredibly reassuring. Ever since New Caprica she has been nothing but a shell of her former self and I am glad to see that she is doing better... unfortunately that glimpse also makes doing what I came here to do that much harder.

That is a sobering thought, one I am still thinking abut when Kara's voice brings me back to the present.

"What is it?" she asks, obviously sensing that something has changed and giving me the opening I had --or rather hadn't-- been looking for.

"We need to talk," I say after hesitating for a moment.

"About?"

"Us," I admit, knowing that I have to get this over with.

"Us?" she repeats with some suspicion.

"Yeah."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that..." I begin before trailing off, not knowing how to explain... at least not without making a mess out of things.

"You are scaring me, Sam."

"I'm sorry, it's just that I did something and..."

"What did you do?"

"Frak, this is hard!"

"Would you just frakking tell me?" she growls and I bite back a curse. To say that this is not going as I had intended it to would be a gross understatement but at the same time there is no turning back and I know it. I know I have to tell her but words are not my thing and I don't have a clue as to how to soften the blow. The last thing I want to do is to hurt Kara but at the same time I don't know what I could possibly say so that she'd understand so I take the coward's way out and just hand her the envelope and then, as I watch her open it, I try to steel myself for what I know is to come.

True, I don't doubt that I am doing what has to be done, what I know Kara will never be able to bring herself to do, but at the same time I know that she is unlikely to see it that way and in the short term... well, let's just say that in the short term this is not going to be easy and leave it at that.

click here to go to chapter 52

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, I don't own the concepts, I make no money, I make no sense and I get no sleep. This is done for fun and I promise to put the characters back where I found them once I'm done playing with them.

Thanks for reading!

BSG fic: Broken Balance (chapter 50)

2008-03-29T12:17:44Z

Here you have chapter fifty of Broken Balance.

click here to go back to chapter 49

Chapter 50
(Kara's POV)

'Frak, frak, frak, FRAK!' I think as I try to figure a way out of this mess, the problem is that I know Lee and I know he can be worse than a dog with a bone at times... and my gut tells me that this is going to be one of those times.

"Jonas?" I repeat, trying hard not to cringe. I hadn't even thought about the bastard in years and now...

"Yes, you said Leoben, Simon and Jonas," he reminds me... not that I need a frakking reminder, damn it!

"No one," I say, even though I already know that that is not going to cut it, not this time around. The problem is that the way I see it I can either lie to Lee or I can tell him the truth and neither one of those options is likely to do me much good. The truth is not something I want to deal with --not now, not ever-- and while a lie would probably buy me a little time, I am afraid that in the long run it would come back to bite me on the ass. That leaves obfuscating as my best bet but even there Lee knows me too well and I don't think he is going to just let me bluff my way out of this one.

"Don't lie to me, Kara, please," he pleads, almost as if he were reading my mind.

"It doesn't matter. Besides, he is dead," I say, knowing that to be the truth... well, maybe 'knowing' is too strong a word.

"Dead?" he repeats and I just nod at that.

"Yeah, he never made it out of the colonies... or at least I don't think he did," I explain, knowing that I can safely admit to that much... and that the more information I can bring myself to 'volunteer' here, the less likely Lee will be to notice the things I'm not telling him.

"So how did he get mixed in with Simon and Leoben?"

"He didn't, not really," I reply.

"But you said..."

"I said that he was with them in my dream, that doesn't mean a frakking thing," I remind him.

"But who was he?" he insists, getting back to the subject at hand... just as I knew he would.

"He was just one of the many losers my mom dated after my dad left. One that lasted longer than the others," I say, shrugging my shoulders and trying to downplay the whole thing.

"I'm guessing there was more to it than that," he points out, almost daring me to contradict him.

"I didn't particularly like him but my mother did and there wasn't a frakking thing I could do about it, in fact there wasn't a frakking thing I could do about any of them. It was her house, her rules, her choice and no one gave a damn as to how I felt about any of it... especially not my mother. I was just along for the ride and I knew that trying to say anything would only have served to make matters worse," I explain, and that is definitely the truth, no need to lie about it... or to mention the fact that --unlike most of the creeps my mother dated back then-- Jonas did like me, that he actually 'liked me' a little too much, that he liked me more than he liked my mom or that that was the real reason he stayed for as long as he did.

"How old were you?"

"I was ten when he first moved in with us and twelve by the time he left."

"So he lived with you for a couple of years?"

"It was more like twenty-two months," I correct him distractedly.

"Not that you were keeping track or anything?" he asks with a hint of a smile.

"Okay, so maybe I really wanted him gone but, as I said, it wasn't up to me. In fact it was pretty much up to everyone but me," I say, not quite managing to keep the anger and the bitterness out of my voice.

"I think I get it," he says with a look of understanding and something akin to pity in his eyes. "You had no control over the situation at all. It may have been your life but at the time you were just a kid and as such there was nothing you could have done about any of it. You were powerless, trapped, just like you were trapped and powerless on New Caprica. You couldn't have escaped this 'Jonas' character any more than you could have escaped Leoben, could you?"

"I guess not," I sort of agree, deeply relieved to see Lee put two and two together and come up with twenty-two. Oh, I know I should probably feel bad about misleading him but as far as I'm concerned I haven't openly lied to him. Everything I have told him so far has been the truth --just not the whole truth-- and if he has jumped to the wrong conclusion, well, I sure as hell am not going to correct him. I may be a screw-up but I am not that stupid.

Granted, trying to kill myself was a dumb thing to do --especially the 'trying' part-- but the bottom line is that I've just about had it with the 'poor broken Kara' looks I keep getting from pretty much everyone these days. Yes, New Caprica was a nightmare and things are still kind of rough but in the end I am still me, I still don't do pity and I just want everyone to back off and leave me the frak alone. I want to put this whole thing behind me once and for all and I know that if I were to tell Lee --or anyone else for that matter-- the whole truth about who Jonas was then the odds of that ever happening would plummet to less than zero.

click here to go to chapter 51

Thanks for reading!

BSG fic: Broken Balance (chapter 49)

2008-03-22T13:48:56Z

Here you have chapter forty-nine of Broken Balance.

click here to go back to chapter 48

Chapter 49
(Lee's POV)

I am instantly awake the moment I hear Kara begin to whimper in her sleep.

Oh, I knew she had been having some pretty serious nightmares --and she is not the only one, far from it-- but up until a couple of days ago I hadn't wanted to admit just how bad the situation was. The fact that someone is having trouble sleeping is just one of those things you can't help but to know in the close quarters of a battlestar but at the same time most pilots consider nightmares to be a sign of weakness and because of that, bunk room etiquette says it is rude to openly acknowledge them... at least not under normal circumstances. Of course, these are not normal circumstances, this is not the bunk room and Kara is not just another pilot. She is a lot more than that and I just can't stand the idea of letting her face her demons alone... not when I'm standing right here.

She is my best friend, damn it, and it's just the two of us. There is no need to keep up appearances and I've just about had it. Of course, convincing her of that fact is not going to be easy and, in a really twisted kind of way, the fact that she is being difficult about that is sort of reassuring.

The thing is that I have been unofficially sharing Kara's 'room' for the past couple of days, ironically ever since Dee confronted me about the amount of time I had been spending here with her. Sure, I know I could go back to the senior pilots' quarters --in fact I know I probably should-- but if I were to do that Dee would be forced to go back to her old bunk as well and I don't think she is ready to do that. Simply put, it was my rank that allowed us to be assigned private quarters in the first place, especially considering that right now we have families with small children living in the crews' quarters, and there is no way Dee would be allowed to keep that room for herself.

That's why I've been sleeping here... not that I'm complaining about that. Yes, my cot is far from comfortable but being here means that I can keep an eye on Kara, it means that I can actually see how she is doing just by looking up and that makes it worth it. Of course, that also means that I have a front-row seat to her nightmares and that brings me back to my current predicament.

For several days now I have been forcing myself to look the other way but I hate to see her suffer and I am itching to do something about that, bunk room etiquette be damned... especially because I can see that this latest nightmare is getting worse, not better. Unfortunately I suspect that --even in her weakened state-- trying to shake Kara awake would be hazardous to my health. She is a soldier first and foremost and that means that she is likely to come out swinging.

Rather gingerly --and knowing that I am taking my life in my hands-- I sit near the foot of her bed and I gently reach for her calf, shaking it slightly as I call her name, hoping to be close enough to offer some comfort if she is willing to accept it but far enough to get out of the way if she decides to strike first and ask questions later.

Her first reaction at my touch is to stiffen and then she sits up with a strangled --almost animalistic-- cry but at the same time she doesn't try to fight me off. It takes her a moment to orient herself.

"Lee?" she asks hesitatingly after a couple of seconds.

"Yes, it's me," I say, moving closer to the head of the bed and pulling her into a hug. I can almost taste her fear as I feel her heart pounding against my chest. For a moment she seems unsure of what to do and I prepare to let her go at the first sign of distress but, much to my relief, eventually she relaxes into my embrace.

We stay like that for what feels like hours, though in reality it is barely a couple of minutes. She is shaking and I keep rubbing circles on her back, trying to get her to calm down but it's not easy.

"You want to talk about it?" I ask pulling away enough to look at her when I feel some of the tension finally drain from her body.

"Not really it's just that..." she trails off, not meeting my eyes and obviously not knowing how to explain.

"Just that what?" I prod.

"It's just that I keep seeing them, that I can't even close my eyes without them..."

"Shh, it's okay, it was just a dream... you got out, you are safe now," I say, though my words ring hollow, even to my own ears.

"I know... or at least I sort of do but I still can't escape them," she admits, fighting back the tears.

"Them?"

"Leoben and Simon and Jonas," she whispers as she chews on her lower lip.

"Kara?"

"Yes?"

"Who is Jonas?"

click here to go to chapter 50

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, I don't own the concepts, I make no money, I make no sense and I get no sleep. This is done for fun and I promise to put the characters back where I found them once I'm done playing with them.

Thanks for reading!

BSG fic: Broken Balance (chapter 48)

2008-03-17T17:22:47Z

Here you have chapter forty-eight of Broken Balance.

click here to go back to chapter 47

Chapter 48
(Sam's POV)

'Think, Sam,' that's what I keep trying to tell myself, not that thinking about it is likely to do me much good.

I had been desperate for a chance to make things right with Kara but somehow I hadn't been expecting it to be quite this hard though, knowing my wife like I do, maybe I should have. She may be able to fly circles around pretty much anyone and she can certainly punch the daylights out of anyone that even looks at her funny but at the same time she doesn't do feelings and trying to get her to open up about anything can be a lot like pulling teeth. Actually, come to think of it, pulling teeth is easier, not to mention far less painful.

The problem is that as much as she may hate the idea of having to talk this through, right now she is in no shape to do anything but talk.

Oh, I can tell that she wishes she were anywhere but here --a frakking blind man could probably see that from miles away-- and that means that reaching her is going to take some doing but at the same time I know there is a lot more to this than I am being told. I mean, from a rational perspective I can understand where she is coming from but no matter how I look at it, there is no way around the fact that this is a frakking mess and that trying to peel the layers back from this thing is bound to be a bitch.

It is not that I doubt the truth of what she said Leoben did to her --as much as I may want to deny it, I know it was the truth-- but at the same time I know Kara is a master of misdirection and that means that what I have been told so far is unlikely to be the whole truth. In fact I suspect that the whole thing was intended to serve mostly as a diversion, that it was a rather desperate ploy to shock me into dropping the issue... and in that regard she has succeeded.

I may be able to recognize what she is up to but that does nothing to change the fact that I don't want to hurt her and I certainly don't want to find myself banned from her side again and that in turn means that, even though I am tempted to at least try to shake some answers out of her, I have to be careful here. Simply put, I can't push without running the risk of upsetting her and, even if I could get her to forgive me for that, one thing I know for certain is that Cottle does not take kindly to people upsetting his patients.

In other words, the direct approach is not an option here and I am going to have no choice but to try to figure out what is going on based on what she isn't saying. Sure, I messed up and I messed up badly the last time around because I was unwilling to see what was happening right in front of me but that is one mistake I don't intend to repeat... and the good news --if it can be called that-- is that at least now I know what I'm up against. Of course, the bad news is that the damage has already been done and I'm not sure there's anything I can do to fix that.

I love my wife and seeing the fear in her eyes every time she looks at me is killing me but there is nothing I can do to change that. I want to be able to hold her in my arms, I want to be able to comfort her, I want to be able to tell her that everything is going to be okay, I want to be able to tell her that the nightmare is over and that she is safe but I can't even do that. There is a distance between us and no matter what I do I just can't breach it.

That means that regaining her trust has to be my top priority. The problem is that I already know that is not going to happen... not without some sort of miracle. In fact, as far as I can tell, there is only one way for me to attempt to do that and even that is a long shot.

I may not know what I have to say right now, I may not even know if there is something --anything-- I could say that could possibly make this better but at least now I have a clue as to what it is that I am supposed to do when I walk out of here. What I have to do is take a chance. I have to risk everything knowing that the odds are stacked heavily against me because, in spite of everything, that is still the lesser evil.

Sure, I hate losing. I am still a pyramid player at heart for frak's sake and giving up goes against my every instinct, but if there is one thing I learned when I was trying to stay one step ahead of the cylons back on Caprica it was precisely the value of a strategic retreat. If nothing else going against a stronger foe taught me that sometimes you have to pick your battles, that when you are at a disadvantage your survival may well depend on your ability to recognize when not to fight. Yes, I could try to make a stand here and no-one would ever blame me for doing so but the bottom line is that this is not a battle, that Kara is not the enemy and yet if I were to keep on fighting, if I were to keep trying to 'win' this thing then chances are that she would lose.

click here to go to chapter 49

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, I don't own the concepts, I make no money, I make no sense and I get no sleep. This is done for fun and I promise to put the characters back where I found them once I'm done playing with them.

Thanks for reading!

BSG fic: Broken Balance (chapter 47)

2008-03-08T14:51:03Z

Here you have chapter forty-seven of Broken Balance.

click here to go back to chapter 46

Chapter 47
(Kara's POV)

Okay, what the frak happened to Cottle's promise that I wouldn't have to deal with Sam until I was ready? I mean it looks to me like he is frakking here and I sure as hell don't feel frakking ready. Sure, the doc says he is not leaving us alone but right now that is not much comfort and I don't even know if his presence is going to make this better or if it is actually going to make matters worse.

"Sam," I say, feeling incredibly awkward and trying to keep the fear at bay. I mean, this is my husband, damn it, and the rational part of my brain knows he is not going to hurt me but then again no one has ever accused me of being rational before and the truth is that right now the mere thought of being alone with him scares the crap out of me.

"Kara," he replies.

"Are you...?" he asks before trailing off.

"What?"

"Are you okay?"

"Getting there."

"Good," he says, still not approaching my bed.

"So...?"

"I'm sorry."

"Sorry?"

"About what happened before, about what I did... I didn't mean to..."

"I know, it wasn't your fault" I say, trying to reassure him... to say nothing of wanting to get this damn thing over with once and for all, unfortunately it is not that simple.

"But that still doesn't change anything, does it?" he asks, looking at me.

"It's not that. I mean, I..."

"You what?"

"It's not you, it's..." I try to explain, the problem is that I still don't have a frakking clue of what is it that I want to say. No, I know exactly what I want to say, the problem is that I don't have a frakking clue of how to say it.

"You are afraid of me."

"No, I..."

"Don't lie to me, Kara, please."

"I'm not," I reply, even though deep down I know that is a lie. I may not want it to be a lie, but it is.

"Yes, you are," he insists.

"As I said, it's not you."

"I know, but I still hurt you."

"You didn't know," I remind him, trying to keep things from spiraling completely out of control here.

"Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you trust me?"

"Believe me, trust had nothing to do with it."

"Then why?"

"Because I..."

"What?"

"I just wanted to forget."

"Well, somehow I get the feeling that that didn't work."

"No, I guess not," I admit.

"Would you talk to me now?" he asks and I glance at the doc. Sure, he is staying out of it but he is still here and even though I really don't want to be left alone with Sam, I also know I owe him an explanation and we don't need an audience for that.

"Doc?"

"Yes?"

"Could you... could we have a moment please?"

"Are you sure?" he asks.

"Yeah," I whisper, feeling far from certain.

"I'll be outside if you need me," he says, throwing a warning glare at Sam.

"Thanks," I reply as I try to keep the fear out of my voice. Yes, I was the one who asked Cottle to leave, yes, this has to be done --preferably without witnesses-- but that doesn't mean that I am looking forward to it.

"Gods, Kara, what did that bastard do to you?"

"You already know."

"I know some of it, not everything," he reminds me.

"So what, you are here for the gory details?"

"I just want to know what the frak happened to you, damn it!"

"So you want me to tell you about how, a couple of days after Simon handed me over to him --as I was showering, trying to wash him off-- he came into the shower, took the soap from my hand and turned my attempt to cleanse myself into a twisted sort of foreplay before frakking me under the spray? Or --I know-- maybe you want me to explain why I didn't go on and on about how his strength wasn't human and how he got a kick out of my pathetic attempts to fight him off... or about how, when he wanted it to hurt, it did? Or maybe you want to hear about the day he..."

"Please, Kara, I..."

"I mean, what's the frakking point? Talking about it is not going to change anything and you know it! It happened, I can't change it, end of story."

"Only it wasn't the end of it, was it? That's why you are here," he challenges, glaring at me, and I just look away at that.

"I'm your husband, damn it, why didn't you trust me?" he insists.

"Don't you get it? It was never about trust! Trust had nothing to do with it!"

"'You've got to be frakking kidding me! Do you really expect me to believe that trust had nothing to do with it?" he asks, looking at me as if I had suddenly grown a second head.

"No!"

"Fine, if it wasn't about trust, if that wasn't even an issue, why couldn't you trust me?"

"Because I just wanted to forget! It was not about me not trusting you, it was about me wanting to put the whole damned thing behind me, damn it! It was about me wanting to move on and it was about me not wanting to see your pity every time you looked at me. It was all about me, not about you! I didn't want you to treat me like I was frakking broken, that's why I didn't tell you, that's why I didn't tell anyone. I just wanted to get back to my life and there was no frakking way I was ever going to be able to do that with you..." I trail off, realizing that I've said too much but knowing that there's no taking it back.

"With me what?"

"With you looking at me like you are doing now!"

click here to go to chapter 48

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, I don't own the concepts, I make no money, I make no sense and I get no sleep. This is done for fun and I promise to put the characters back where I found them once I'm done playing with them.

Thanks for reading!

BSG fic: Broken Balance (chapter 46)

2008-03-02T21:20:03Z

Here you have chapter forty-six of Broken Balance.

click here to go back to chapter 45

Chapter 46
(Lee's POV)

"Wait, you mean to tell me that you think that what Kara's been through can somehow be considered a good thing?" I ask, shaking my head at the thought.

"No, of course not."

"Then what are you..."

"I'm just saying that it is too soon to tell what the long term consequences of this are going to be."

"She damn near killed herself!" I exclaim.

"Yes."

"So?"

"So that still doesn't mean a frakking thing. Yes, anyone can see that what she went through on New Caprica was a hellish experience --one that left her badly damaged-- but you have to keep in mind that the causes and the consequences of something like this don't necessarily lie along the same lines."

"What?!"

"Let me see if I can explain it to you. If a man were to be involved in a serious accident, one that resulted in some fairly major injuries --say, several broken bones-- would you describe that accident as a good thing?" he asks.

"No, of course not," I reply, still not quite knowing what that has to do with anything.

"Fine, now assume that in the aftermath of that accident an x-ray is taken and it reveals the presence of a small dark spot in one of the man's lungs. It's a tumor, one that under normal circumstances wouldn't even have been found until it was too late. Because of that x-ray the man's life is saved. Does that change the nature of what happened to him in the first place, does that make a difference in terms of the injuries he sustained?"

"No, but..."

"So, using your own definition, the accident itself would technically remain a 'bad' thing?"

"I guess."

"And what about its consequences?"

"I see."

"Good. Now, I'm not suggesting that that is an accurate analogy or that that situation is all that similar to what we are dealing with here, far from it. The truth is that in most instances the causes do match the consequences but that still doesn't mean that the outcome of this thing can be predicted with any kind of certainty. As I said, what happened to her on that planet will leave some scars and there are going to be some permanent changes --that is unavoidable-- but at the same time this has given us an unexpected opening to address some other issues, one we wouldn't otherwise have had."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, let's face it, Starbuck has been a ticking time bomb ever since she came on board and the destruction of the colonies didn't really do much to help matters in that regard. She was a mess when I met her, turned into an even bigger mess after the attacks --not that the rest of us were doing much better, mind you-- and then New Caprica pushed her over the edge. Now, back when I first met her her defenses would have prevented anyone from getting close enough to even attempt to address those underlying issues however those defenses have been effectively destroyed. Yes, the price she had to pay to make that possible was high, way too high for anyone to say that it was worth it, but that price has already been paid so we might as well take advantage of the opportunity."

"In other words, you are saying that there is something that can be gained from all of this?"

"No, I wouldn't go that far. All I'm saying is that there may be something that can be gained from all of this. It won't be easy and I know she is going to have to rebuild her defenses sooner or later--she has to-- but I'm hoping that by the time she is done picking up the pieces that won't change a frakking thing because at least you and your father will already be inside the perimeter."

"So that's what you are aiming for?"

"Or at least what I'm hoping for."

"Okay, so what comes next?"

"I guess the next step would be to at least try to bring Anders back into the picture."

"Sam?" I ask, not quite knowing how I feel about that. She may be married to the guy but I still don't trust him... especially not after what happened the last time he was allowed to come near her.

"Yes. I have been keeping him away ever since she regained consciousness but he has been asking me to let him see her on a daily basis and let's just say that he is not the only one that keeps bugging me about that. Granted, unlike the rest of her friends his being banned was a direct result of his own stupidity but now that she is doing better there is no real reason for me to keep him away any longer. "

"But Kara still hasn't asked to see him," I remind him.

"No, but then again she hasn't asked to see any of her friends either... and if we were to leave her to her own devices that situation would be unlikely to change. Right now she is in hiding and that means that if we don't want her to retreat further into her shell we are going to have to do some pushing."

"Are you sure she is ready for something like that?" I ask, feeling more than a little worried.

"I'm about as sure as I can be. There is a small measure of risk, there always will be, but that won't change if we keep putting this off and the bottom line is that this situation can't be allowed to go on for much longer. That's why I want to do this. Yes, Anders messed up and he messed up badly but the truth is that what happened wasn't entirely his fault and, even if it had been, we have to start with someone."

"But wouldn't Helo...?" I begin but Cottle interrupts me.

"No."

"Why not?" I insist.

"Because he doesn't know, Sam does," he points out.

"But..."

"Oh, for frak's sake, she may be more than a little vulnerable right now but that girl is not made of china and she is not going to break. Besides, even though Starbuck is my main concern here, she is not my only one. Anders is worried sick about her, he cares about her and the guilt is killing him. He needs to see her. Besides, it's not like I'm going to be leaving them alone any time soon, all I'm saying is that the time has come for us to at least try to get those two in the same room. I know you want to protect her, I know you are worried --I get that-- but she is going to have to brave the outside world sooner or later and there's not a frakking thing you can do to change that," he growls and, even though the rational part of my mind knows that the doc actually has a point, that doesn't mean I have to like it.

click here to go to chapter 47

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, I don't own the concepts, I make no money, I make no sense and I get no sleep. This is done for fun and I promise to put the characters back where I found them once I'm done playing with them.

Thanks for reading!

BSG fic: Broken Balance (chapter 45)

2008-02-17T17:34:17Z

Here you have chapter forty-five of Broken Balance.

click here to go back to Chapter 44

Chapter 45
(Cottle's POV)

It takes me half a second to take in the scene before me and when I do I have to struggle to keep myself from rolling my eyes at the two of them.

"You, out," I growl, glaring at Apollo and pointing at the hatch before turning my attention back to Starbuck who is not even trying to keep the smug smirk out of her face. "I will deal with you later, young lady," I warn her, wondering what is it that I did to deserve this. I mean, Roslin is supposed to be the kindergarten teacher around here, not me, damn it!

"I thought you had gone back to your wife," I say as soon as I close the hatch and I'm sure Starbuck can't hear us.

"Yes, well, I came back," he mutters, rather defensively, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out that there's trouble in paradise... not that that comes as much of a surprise.

"I see, and would you mind telling me what the frak did you think you were doing in there?" I ask, lighting a cigarette and fighting the urge to shake some sense into the major... especially because he is someone we can't do without if Starbuck is going to have as much as a snowball's in hell chance of getting over this.

"Nothing."

"So you weren't upsetting my patient?"

"I was trying to have a talk with her."

"Yes, well, I think it's safe to say that 'trying' is the operative word in that statement."

"Excuse me?"

"Tell me something, have you ever wondered why is it that when you are out there the two of you seem to know instinctively what it is that the other one is thinking but the moment you step out of the cockpit you somehow manage to mangle even the most basic of conversations?"

"That's none of your..."

"That's where you are wrong," I interrupt him before he can even finish that statement. "As long as she is in here, as long as she is my patient, it is my business."

"I wasn't trying to hurt her, damn it!" he snaps, sounding more than a little frustrated.

"Believe it or not, I know that, which is why I'm not going to tell you to stay away from her... all I'm saying is that you have to be careful here. Yes, she is doing better, she is not made of glass and she can even take some heat under certain circumstances... but now is not the time and you have to learn when not to push."

"I know, I know, it's just that..."

"That she knows exactly which buttons to push?" I ask, knowing her well enough to realize that blaming Apollo for this latest fiasco is probably more than a little unfair.

"Something like that," he admits. "I really wasn't trying to get into an argument with her but..."

"But she didn't give you much of a choice?"

"Yes. I mean, I contributed to it, there's no denying that. I knew I should probably have tried to back down, that I should have tried to defuse the situation but there were some things I wanted to know and..."

"It's okay, son... as I said, she is not made of glass but you have to keep in mind that that girl's been through hell. She trusts you and that means that you are in a unique position to help her here but it also means that you can do a lot of damage without even trying and I need you to be very aware of that fact. Yes, in spite of everything she's been through she is still Starbuck but at the same time she is already blaming herself for what she believes she 'allowed' Leoben to do to her and the last thing she needs is for you to be going on some sort of self-righteous tirade, do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, sir," he replies before asking, "is she... is she going to be okay?"

"The truth? I just don't know. Yes, she is doing as well as can be expected but... it's not that simple."

"Why not?"

"Because while there are some things that I would definitely describe as positive signs under normal circumstances, they are also more than a little out of character for her so I'm not even sure what to make out of them or where this is going," I explain after hesitating for a moment. I know that technically I shouldn't be telling him this but at the same time Apollo is one of the two people she trusts and he is probably going to be spending a lot of time with her --both with and without supervision-- so I need him to realize just what it is that he is up against... confidentiality be damned.

"What kind of things?"

"Little things, like the fact that while she was sedated you got in the habit of holding her hand whenever you were with her and your father got in the habit of ending his visits with a kiss on her forehead... and you are both still doing it. The good news is that she is not flinching away from your touch and that is more than I had dared to hope for, the bad news is that I'm not sure the 'old' Starbuck would have welcomed it, at least not openly."

"Is that going to be an issue?"

"It's too soon to tell... and right now that's not anywhere near the top of my list of priorities," I admit. "For the time being my main concern is helping that girl regain some semblance of a normal life but even though deep down she is still Starbuck, I can tell you that hoping that things will just go back to 'the way they used to be' is not realistic, far from it. Make no mistake about it, what the cylons did to her will be with her for the rest of her life and there's not a frakking thing we can do to change that."

"That bad?" he asks, rather hesitatingly.

"I didn't say that."

"But you said..." he begins but I interrupt him.

"I said that there are probably going to be some permanent changes... I didn't say anything about the nature of those changes," I explain, still trying to get him to understand. "All I'm saying is that right now it is still too early to tell where the pieces are going to fall but that even in the best of cases there are bound to be some scars... and that progress has to be measured against the way things were when she first came back from New Caprica, not against the way they were before she settled on that gods-forsaken rock."

click here to chapter 46

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, I don't own the concepts, I make no money, I make no sense and I get no sleep. This is done for fun and I promise to put the characters back where I found them once I'm done playing with them.

Thanks for reading!

BSG fic: Broken Balance (chapter 44)

2008-02-10T14:20:19Z

Here you have chapter forty-four of Broken Balance.

click here to go back to chapter 43

Chapter 44
(Lee's POV)

Part of me knows that I have to tread carefully here, part of me knows that I'm in way over my head --hell, part of me knows that I should really be looking for a way to put an end to this conversation, both for Kara's sake and for my own... especially because Cottle would have my hide if he knew about this-- but at the same time I just can't let this go. I need an answer, I need to understand what the frak happened all those months ago, to say nothing of the fact that this can not be put off indefinitely so, even if I were to put an end to it right now, sooner or later we would have to do this all over again and that in itself would be more than a little unpleasant.

Yes, I am well aware of all the reasons why this is a bad idea. I know Kara is at the end of her rope, I know she is in no shape to be going over this right now, I know her defenses are down and I know I am taking advantage of that fact but at the same time I don't think she needs to have this hanging over her head, not if it can possibly be avoided... or at least that is what I keep trying to tell myself.

Of course, if her answers so far are anything to go by, I suspect that she has been giving this whole situation some thought... not that that means she is likely to share those thoughts with me out of the kindness of her heart.

"So why did you do it? What were you so afraid of?" I ask, steeling myself for a fight and trying to come up with some sort of strategy.

"I already told you. I didn't think I would ever be good enough, I didn't think I could be what you wanted and deep down I knew that in the end Sam couldn't hurt me."

"And you think I would have?"

"Maybe not deliberately but... you kept asking for more than I could give and..." she trails off.

"And what?"

"And I knew I could survive losing Sam," she whispers after hesitating for a moment.

"So you left me because you were afraid I was going to leave you?" I ask, trying --without much success-- to make some sort of sense out of what passes for Kara's logic.

"Sort of."

"Gods, Kara, do you really have that little faith in me?"

"What?" she asks, looking honestly puzzled.

"I asked you if you really have that little faith in me," I repeat.

"No, but..."

"No 'buts', Kara. Did it ever even occur to you that I might not leave at all, that if you had given me half a chance I would have stayed?"

"I'm sorry, Lee, I just... I couldn't do it... I..."

"You what?"

"I'm a screw up," she whispers, falling back to what amounts to her standard response... one I'm getting sick and tired of.

"No, you are not."

"But you just said that I screwed up," she reminds me and I have to fight the urge to bang my head against the wall at that.

"I never said that you screwed up, I said that we did, there's a difference, but even if I had said 'you' instead of 'we' the fact that you screwed up still doesn't make you a screw up, it makes you human. I know you got scared, I get that but..."

"But what?"

"But damn it, Kara, why couldn't you just trust me?"

"But I did," she insists.

"Not enough to stay," I remind her, not quite succeeding in keeping the hurt out of my voice.

"That's not..." she trails off.

"That's not what?" I prod, wondering how many tries is it going to take for me to get something remotely resembling a full answer out of her.

"That's not it, that's not why I left."

"Then why?"

"Because..."

"Nothing."

"Don't give me that crap, Kara! Why did you leave?"

"I already told you."

"Because you couldn't stand the thought of me leaving you? Do you have any idea of just how frakking crazy that sounds?"

"Then tell me what the frak is it that you want to hear!"

"What?"

"You asked me why I left, I told you and you basically told me that I had to pick a different answer, so I figured I might as well save myself some trouble and ask you what the frak is it that you expect me to say."

"I want you to tell me the truth, damn it!"

"And that's precisely the point: I already did, it's not my fault if you don't want to hear it!" she snaps and I realize that this is not going to get us anywhere. Kara has dug her heels in and she is not going to budge.

"Come on, Kara, let's not..."

"Let's not what?" she growls.

"I don't want to fight you, damn it, I just want to understand!"

"And have you ever tried listening for that?" she mutters, glaring at me.

"That's rich coming from you!"

"Yeah, well..." she begins but she is suddenly interrupted by Cottle's arrival and the truth is that I don't even know if I should be relieved or annoyed by that. Yes, I knew we weren't going to get anywhere any time soon and in that regard having the doc put an end to it without either one of us having to back down does give us an easy way out of this one but at the same time I have more questions than answers --frak, I have more questions now than I did a few minutes ago-- and the doc's presence here means that those questions are bound to remain unanswered... for now.

click here to go to chapter 45

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, I don't own the concepts, I make no money, I make no sense and I get no sleep. This is done for fun and I promise to put the characters back where I found them once I'm done playing with them.

Thanks for reading!

BSG fic: Broken Balance (chapter 43)

2008-01-26T16:59:09Z

Here you have chapter forty-three of Broken Balance.

click here to go back to chapter 42

Chapter 43
(Kara's POV)

I am feeling drained, my gut is bugging me more than a bit --though it is still nowhere near bad enough to warrant asking Cottle for some pain meds-- and I am thinking that this day couldn't possibly get any worse when I see Lee walk back into my 'room'... so much for that theory. I admit that my first instinct upon seeing him is to bang my head against the wall but a look into his eyes is all it takes for me to realize that we have a problem.

"What's wrong?"

"What makes you think there's something wrong?"

"Don't give me that crap, Lee," I growl.

"It's nothing."

"Then why are you here?" I challenge.

"It's nothing," he insists... not that I'm buying it.

"You had a fight with Dee," I guess.

"Something like that," he reluctantly admits.

"Because of me?" I ask, even though I already know what the answer to that particular question is likely to be.

"No, because of me."

"Yeah, right," I snort, hating the fact that he thinks I can't handle it.

"It's the truth," he insists before explaining. "She asked me something... she asked me if I would be here with her if your positions were reversed, if I were married to you and she were the ones stuck in that bed and I couldn't lie to her."

"Lee?"

"She may be my wife but the truth is that that is just a title, it doesn't mean a frakking thing, or at least not what it should... I didn't want to see it but..."

"But Lee Adama still loves Kara Thrace?" I whisper, thinking back to that night on New Caprica. The problem is that knowing where he is coming from doesn't really do me much good when it comes to figuring out what the frak am I supposed to say about any of this or that I know where the frak this whole thing is going.

"Yes," he admits with a hint of a smile. "I know this is the last thing you need to hear and I know I don't have a right to expect anything from you --especially not now-- I get that, but I was just using Dee. I married her out of spite and that was a mistake, a mistake I don't want to perpetuate. She deserves better than that."

"I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault. I am the one who married her for all the wrong reasons."

"After I married Sam," I remind him.

"Yes, but that doesn't matter... or at least it shouldn't have."

"'Maybe it shouldn't have but we both know it did."

"It was still my choice," he insists.

"And I'm still sorry."

"Would you at least tell me why?" he asks.

"I don't know if I can," I admit.

"It's okay," he says, trying to reassure me which --in a really twisted kind of way-- only serves to make me feel even worse.

"No it's not... I..." I trail off.

"You what?"

"I screwed up."

"I think it's safe to say that we both did but that still doesn't answer my question."

"That night on New Caprica... I was happy," I finally admit.

"Okay, now I really don't understand. If you were happy why the frak did you...?" he trails off.

"Why did I leave?" I ask.

"Yes."

"Because you wanted more and I couldn't give it to you."

"More?"

"Yes. You wanted me to shout it out and I... I don't know. It was like what we had was not enough for you and..."

"And what?"

"And I didn't think I could be what you wanted, I didn't think I would ever be good enough," I explain, feeling incredibly awkward. Words have never been my thing but unfortunately --stuck in this bed as I am-- I really don't have much of a choice, especially not considering that Lee is obviously not going to let this go any time soon... to say nothing of the fact that he deserves an answer. I hurt him, I know that much, and I owe him one hell of a lot more than an explanation. Of course, the fact that I know I owe him the truth doesn't make telling him that truth any easier.

"So you just took off?"

"Yes."

"And you went and married Sam."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because, as weird as it sounds, Sam was safe. He loved me and I cared for him but deep down I knew that, no matter how bad things got between us, he couldn't really hurt me... not like you could."

"You got scared," he says, with a sudden look of understanding that really creeps me out.

"I guess," I admit, fighting the urge to deny it. Sure, I know I hurt him and I know he has a right to know this but that doesn't mean I have to like it and it certainly doesn't mean that this whole honesty thing is not a bitch.

"Do you have any idea of just how frakking crazy that sounds?!" he all but yells at me.

"Why don't you tell me?" I shoot back, glaring at him.

"Gods, Kara, I don't want to fight but..."

"But what?" I growl, wanting that anger back because --as weird as it may seem-- his anger is familiar, it is something I know how to deal with. 'Fight or frak', that's what we do, it's what we've always done... unfortunately right now neither one of those is a real option and we both know it. That leaves talking and, as I said before, that is definitely not my strong suit.

"But I still don't understand," he admits, looking more than a little confused.

"Never mind."

"Don't do that, Kara, don't shut me out, please," he pleads.

"I'm not..." I begin but he interrupts me.

"Yes, you are. What were you so afraid of?"

"I can't..."

"Yes, you can," he insists and the truth is that I don't know what the frak am I supposed to say. I am feeling incredibly raw here. I'm not ready for this --especially not after today, not after Cottle and the Old Man and the President all had a go at me-- but at the same time I can see that Lee is not going to let this go, that he is not going to back down, and that means that --as much as I may not want to do this-- I really don't have much of a choice.

click here to go to chapter 44

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, I don't own the concepts, I make no money, I make no sense and I get no sleep. This is done for fun and I promise to put the characters back where I found them once I'm done playing with them.

Thanks for reading!

NEW FIC: Broken Balance (42/?) 13+

2008-01-19T14:40:42Z

Here you have chapter forty-two of Broken Balance.

click here to go back to chapter 41

Chapter 42
(Lee's POV)

As soon as I see the look in Dee's eyes I know this is not going to be pretty. Sure, I know she is not happy about the current situation, in fact I know this has been simmering for a while but up until today she hadn't really said anything about it. Unfortunately it looks like that is about to change now and --to make matters worse-- I suspect that trying to tell her that this is really not a good time for this to boil over would do more harm than good.

"Lee," she says by way of greeting.

"Dee," I reply, feeling exhausted and just wanting this whole thing to be over with once and for all.

"Where were you?"

"You know where I was," I say, refusing to play this game.

"You were with her."

"Yes."

"You were with her for more than four hours?"

"I guess," I reply though the truth is that I have no idea of just how long it's been because keeping track of time was the furthest thing from my mind.

"I am your wife."

"And she is my friend. You have no idea..."

"Of course I don't. You haven't told me anything!" she all but yells at me.

"It's not my story to tell," I remind her, not willing to back down.

"And it's not your place either. She has a husband, in case you haven't noticed."

"You see, that's where you are wrong. It is my place. Sam may be her husband but she is still my friend. The fact that she is married to someone else doesn't change that and I am not going to abandon her, that is not open for debate," I warn her.

"And her husband is okay with this little arrangement?" she asks, the disbelief clear in her voice.

"I don't know. I haven't really talked to him in a while."

"So he wasn't there," she says, glaring at me and not even bothering to phrase that as a question.

"No. I think Cottle has been keeping him up to date but as far as I know Kara hasn't really asked to see him," I admit, knowing that that is not going to go over well.

"But she wants to see you."

"Yes."

"And you don't find that odd?"

"I don't care if it's odd, I'm just glad to be there."

"And that's precisely the point. I'm your wife!"

"Would you just listen to yourself? I nearly lost her, damn it!"

"Maybe you are the one who should be listening to himself instead! You nearly lost her? She is not yours to lose, Lee!"

"So what do you want me to do?"

"I don't know! I guess I want you to be here with me, where you belong. Is that too much to ask?"

"Yes," I say, even though I already know that that is not going to go over well.

"WHAT!?" she yells

"You heard me. You may be my wife but I don't belong to you. I haven't done anything wrong and I sure as hell am not going to apologize for being there for her," I reply, knowing that there's no way I can get Dee to understand, especially not without betraying Kara's trust.

"It's not your place," she insists for what feels like the umpteenth time.

"That's where you are wrong and I sure as hell won't abandon Kara just because you are jealous!"

"Then leave!" she yells.

"Is that what you really want?" I ask, somewhat taken aback by that.

"No, it's what you want. Tell me something Lee, if our positions were reversed, if you were married to her and I were the one stuck in sickbay, would you be having this argument with her, would you be fighting her for the right to stay by my side?" she asks and I can do nothing but to look away because the truth is that she is right, that if their positions were reversed I wouldn't be there.

"Just go," she says, obviously fighting back the tears.

"I'm sorry," I whisper as I walk out of our quarters, feeling incredibly ashamed even as a deep sense of relief washes over me.

click here to go to chapter 43

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, I don't own the concepts, I make no money, I make no sense and I get no sleep. This is done for fun and I promise to put the characters back where I found them once I'm done playing with them.

Thanks for reading!

BSG fic: Broken Balance (chapter 41)

2008-01-12T14:51:35Z

Here you have chapter forty-one of Broken Balance.

click here to go back to chapter 40

Chapter 41
(Dee's POV)

I think I've been patient enough. No, I know I've been patient enough but no more. Not after today.

I have been waiting for my so-called-husband to come 'home' for more than four hours now but there is still no sign of him. Of course, I know where to find him if I need him, I've known all along... hell, the whole frakking ship knows where he is. He is in sickbay, he is always in sickbay... he is always with her and, to make matters worse, I can't even object to his presence there... not without looking like the bad guy.

I'm not the bad guy here. Lee is my husband but that is not the way people see it. No, as far as most of them are concerned there is absolutely nothing wrong with him ignoring me for another woman. As far as they are concerned he is just supporting his 'friend' in her time of need... friend, now that's a laugh. Starbuck and Apollo have never been 'friends' and the whole ship knows it. I may be married to him but I am still treated like 'the other woman' by most of the crew and, after Starbuck's pathetic little stunt, I'm not even allowed to complain about it.

As far as they are concerned, she needs him.

Well, I need him too but that doesn't really seem to matter... and neither does the fact that she has a husband of her own, a husband that --unlike mine-- can usually be found anywhere but at her bedside, though rumor has it that he is not there because Cottle banned him from sickbay over a week ago.

Of course, it's not just Apollo. Even the Admiral seems to be glued to her side. I may be his daughter-in-law but Starbuck is his daughter, period. She is his golden girl and I am second-best.

Oh, it's not that I don't care what happens to Kara, not really, it's not even that I don't like her. It's just that I hate the way I am constantly pushed aside because of her 'needs' and I hate the fact that my husband is lying to me, that he is keeping something from me. I know something is bothering him but he won't even talk to me about it and that is making me feel like an outsider in my own marriage. That is not a pleasant feeling and I've just about had it.

Maybe if Lee would open up and trust me this wouldn't be so bad but I already know that's never going to happen.

Sure, I know they are not having a steamy affair while she is in sickbay, but that is not the point, not really. The point is that... I don't even know what the frakking point is any more. Maybe the point is that I know I'm losing him and there's nothing I can do to change that. Maybe the point is that now that Kara is back on board, now that we are all stuck together in a single battlestar again, there is no way I'm ever going to be able to compete with the almighty Starbuck... not in Lee's eyes and not in anyone else's.

She is the lead pilot and I'm just the communications officer... the ship's glorified secretary. I don't get to be a hero, I don't get to save the day... I just do what I can to keep things running smoothly but even there I am well aware that I am far from essential when it comes to the fleet's survival. My job requires no special skills and there are plenty of others who could do what I do with very little training and I also know that a CO is all I'm ever going to be. Of course, there is also no denying that there are some considerable advantages to my position here.

I may be a glorified secretary but at least my job is about as safe as you can get these days... it is predictable and that is the way I like it. I have to do as I am told but that is it. There are no ambiguities to it, no life or death decisions that I have to make and --as long as the Galactica remains in one piece-- no major risks associated with it either.

No, my problem is not my job, at least not directly. My problem is that I am married to a pilot but --unlike Starbuck-- I am not one of them. Pilots have their own little clique and not even a wedding ring will buy you an entrance to their private club. That puts me at a distinct disadvantage here.

The pilots are the guardians of the fleet, they are the heroes, they see themselves as brothers in arms, they are used to having each other's backs and they are all but worshiped by everyone else. They are the ones risking their lives day in and day out to keep the rest of us safe and --even after a year on New Caprica-- that still goes double for the almighty Starbuck, a living legend with a knack for flaunting the rules and beating the odds.

She is one half of 'Starbuck and Apollo' and --seeing how I am married to the other half-- I am stuck fighting a battle I know I cannot win.

She has always cast a giant shadow on my marriage --she did it even when she left the fleet, when she and Lee weren't speaking to each other... when my husband couldn't even stand to hear her name-- but at least back then she was not a constant presence in our lives... not like she is now.

I am still thinking about that, I am still trying to figure out how to handle this whole mess and what my next move should be when I hear the hatch open and I see Lee walk back into our quarters.

click here to go to chapter 42

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, I don't own the concepts, I make no money, I make no sense and I get no sleep. This is done for fun and I promise to put the characters back where I found them once I'm done playing with them.

Take care and thanks for reading!