Short, unbetaed Battlestar Galactica story. Set post KBL. I would normally wait awhile to put this out there, but it's been so long since I wrote *anything* that I wanted to see if it's even in the same zipcode as decent.





There’s a bruise on her chest from the fall. Later, she traces its outline with her finger, presses against the purple circle over and over. She leans against the wreck of a car and stares down the abandoned street, trying to imagine Caprica as it once was. But even the air tastes dead.

As it once was. Boomer is staring at her, trying to read her face and Starbuck doesn’t give her any satisfaction. Boomer’s a Cylon, she mouths to herself, and it means nothing. The facts don’t suddenly click into place, there’s nothing to explain. It’s senseless.

Boomer’s a Cylon and Helo’s alive and Cylon’s can be pregnant, and they’re stuck on a haunted planet with a ship built for one.

She presses down harder this time. Pain is good; pain anchors her to her body. Pain reminds her that she’s still alive.



*


There’s a plan. She’s better at improvising, but Helo is a soldier, through and through, in all the ways she could never be. She plays the part, but she’s too perverse, too in love with danger. If she weren’t the best, she’d be dead already. She’s always known that.

She tries to stop thinking. Stick to the plan, stick to the basics. Helo will be back in five minutes, and then it’ll be nothing but a dead sprint.

Boomer lets out a small cry as she slides to the ground.

“And you’ve been a Cylon all along,” Starbuck says. “All these frakking years.”

“For what it’s worth, my counterpart never knew. She wasn’t playing a part.”

She sounds like what Boomer sounds like when she’s being honest. For whatever that’s worth, and it might be worth everything. Starbuck realizes she doesn’t think of them as toasters anymore, that maybe they never should’ve. Nobody hates a toaster. Nobody thinks about toasters.

“Do you love him?” she asks as Boomer stares at the spot where Helo is supposed to re-appear.

“You believe that I could?” Boomer asks, genuinely surprised.

Kara shrugs. “I believe that you believe it.”

She bites her lip, and for a moment looks young, and confused. “I’m not sure, exactly. We have no- nothing for comparison. I don’t know if I feel anything the way you feel it. But I hope so. Otherwise, what am I doing here?”



*



One night left, and then they’re gone. They steal a ship and leave the world’s largest coffin. Three days here, and she’s already developing a morbid sense of humor. Either Helo’s a better man than she is, or he’s already cracked, and from the way he’s watching Boomer; half predatory, half longing, she’s guessing it’s the second one.

He insists on tying Sharon to a tree, and Starbuck doesn’t bother to argue.

“Watch my stomach,” Boomer says, and it’s only to be cruel.

She shares a blanket with Helo, shoulder to shoulder, leg to leg. His skin is warm and when his foot brushes her's it could be with purpose, she’s not sure. She’s fucked Helo before, but Boomer’s close enough to see and that’s new.

And her pride is still stinging from the incident with Baltar. Her self-control is begging for a re-match. Everything else is going to hell, so she damn well better have control of herself.

But it’s like not thinking about a white elephant. The more she tells herself to forget Lee, the more she compares them. Lee’s skin would be cooler, smoother. He would shy away from her body, away from all of the implications that come with sex. Lee can be such a girl.

She likes sex because it’s the most uncomplicated thing there is. Just sweat and friction. No Cylons who look and think and act and feel like humans, no humans who can barely act human. No uneasy truces or jumbled signals. She follows her body, and it always knows exactly what it wants.

She turns over anyway. Next to her, Helo breaths out and she isn’t sure if it’s with relief or disappointment.




*




The ironic thing is that if she were ever with Lee, she might not see him either. She’s imagined it before, more times then she likes to admit and it’s always the same.

Lee’s body presses against her, slick with sweat, and Zak is right there, like a shadow, like a supernatural orgy. Even her daydreams can’t move past him.

They look nothing like each other. And yet, in certain moments, at the right angle, she could swear that Lee has the same smile, the same worry lines creasing his forehead. The same look of stubborn idealism that marks all three of the Adama men.

She can’t compartmentalize them, like a good soldier should.

“You’ll like my brother,” Zak promised her, and she did. But he’s still Zak’s brother and it feels like a betrayal to admit, even in her own head that she could love him. So she doesn’t.



*


Morning. Her shoulders are cramped, and she’s pretty sure there’s a root lodged in the small of her back.

Helo’s already awake, and moving. “Cylons,” he hisses as he hacks at Boomer’s ropes.

She’s on her feet instantly.

“Time to make a stand?” he asks.

Her only response is a grin, and then a whoop.

She meets them with just her fists, and this feels good, this feels right. They keep coming and she keeps going. There’ll be fresh bruises in the morning, but she keeps swinging.



*