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cybermathwitch) wrote2008-12-18 03:32 am
12 Days of Ficmas - Day Four: An Intangible Journey / Dominance / Playing Roles
Title: An Intangible Journey / Dominance / Playing Roles
Author: Koren M.
Rating: PG-13
'Ship: Kara/Lee
Disclaimer: Not mine. They're Ron Moore, David Eick, and the SciFi Channel's
Warnings: mild language
Spoilers: Season 2
Summary: Not all journeys are clearly marked on a map. Their relationship is far more complicated than it might first appear.
Notes: Thanks to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
ez_as_pi for the beta.
An Intangible Journey
strangers
They've never been strangers. Even when they finally make love, it's like they've always known each other. The first day they were introduced, they both felt some kind of indescribable connection and the deep-seated sense of "this is where I belong." when their eyes first met.
It happened to scare the crap out of the both of them.
Kara, for her part, had never felt that kind of belonging anywhere, or with anyone. Not even with her father, though that was the closest she'd ever come - sitting beside him at the piano while he played music for her. But it was nothing like how she felt when she looked at Lee.
Lee, on the other hand, had felt that kind of a connection before, although in a somewhat weaker form. It was how he felt around his brother, Zak, who'd always been his touchstone no matter how often they moved around.
So the first time their eyes meet, the first time they touch, something snaps into place for the both of them, and they know that they'll never be the same.
When they meet again at the end of the worlds, they know that they are two of the luckiest people still alive, because they have each other.
They cling to each other briefly after Zak dies, each trying to hold the other one together. It blows up, rather spectacularly, in their faces, and when he comes back to her apartment the fourth night after the funeral to find her frakking Major Donnelly on her living room floor, he grabs his stuff and leaves without saying goodbye.
best friends
They're always each other's best friend. No matter what. They never make the promise out loud, but it's a universal truth that both of them understood. Until the day when suddenly, it's not really true anymore.
Because he can't stand the thought that she went to his father over him. He doesn't know the truth, Kara can't stand the idea of telling him and seeing him hate her for it, so she lets him continue to blame his dad for Zak's death. And goes her own way to do what she feels like she needs to do. Which is punish herself by going to work with the father of the man she thinks she killed, someone she's discovering she respects despite Lee's dislike, anger, and eventual hatred.
It serves another purpose for her, as well. It pushes Lee as far away as she can get him. Because if she's killed one man (and she'll also never forget her father, which her mother has taught her to blame herself for) then what will happen to the one man who matters the most to her?
enemies
They're enemies. They've gotten close to it before, but this time, it's real. It's palpable. Everyone on the frakking ship has figured it out, even if they don't know the cause. Apollo and Starbuck have hit critical mass, and everyone else is just running for cover. Fallout shelters are priority at the moment.
The triad table is remarkably deserted. People make excuses not to be in the gym, and only the essential personnel hang out on the flight deck these days. The CAG's office is off-limits unless you're in dire - and they do mean dire need, and the majority of the other pilots are just glad that Apollo's married and has separate quarters, because they don't really relish the thought of spending the foreseeable future sleeping in Camp Oil Slick. (But when it comes down to it, it's preferable to the idea of being in the bunkroom when the final straw hits the camel's back. Really.)
Even Kat, who normally loves to egg Starbuck on, is playing it safe on this one. She's seen Apollo on the edges of angry, a long, long time ago. It was an awesome (as in awe-causing, awe-inspiring) sight, but not one she wants to repeat. So she's avoiding the both of them, except for CAP and flight drills, and then she's praying to gods she only half believes in that the other two don't end up getting her or any of the rest of the pilots dead.
*****
Dominance
The only time Kara Thrace isn't dominant is when she's flying Apollo's wing.
When pilots fly Vipers, there has to be a clear-cut chain of command. Pilots are operating in a three hundred and sixty degree environment at astonishing speeds and zero room for error. When someone gives an order, they have to trust that the other person is going to follow that order - to the letter - or they're both risking a crash and burn.
So when they're in their cockpits, with very few exceptions (usually when Lee's being a self-sacrificing ass) she does what he says. She may argue with him, but even while she's arguing she's doing it. Whatever he wants, because otherwise she'd get them both killed.
But somewhere along the way, that trust breaks down - not the trust between Lee and Kara, because that eroded a long time ago - but the trust between Apollo and Starbuck.
If you asked Lee, he'd swear it was because he wasn't there when Kara went up against Admiral Cain. If you asked Kara, she'd say that it was probably because she'd shot and nearly killed him during the hostage crisis on Cloud Nine.
In reality, it was neither of those times. In reality, Apollo stopped trusting Starbuck because as he slipped farther and farther down the slope of depression he stopped trusting himself.
Starbuck stopped trusting Apollo when she had her world pulled out from under her and started questioning whether or not anything was real anymore.
*****
Playing Roles
They're getting very good at role play. She plays the role of the frak-up pilot. He plays the role of the irritated CAG. She takes over what should be his role and plays the brilliant tactician; he takes over her role as the hotshot and pulls off an impossible maneuver.
They flow off each other and play opposites, magnets whose poles are set to attract and repel. But what people don't' realize is that, like magnets, they each have both halves of a cohesive whole. A magnet has, by necessity (and there's that word again) a positive pole and a negative pole. If two magnets are put together with matching ends, they'll push and fight and struggle until they can get away. But if opposing ends are set near each other, they'll strike together, often forcefully.
Movement can be created by bouncing magnets off of each other.
They keep themselves in motion by becoming just similar enough to rebound off of each other, then dissimilar enough that they draw each other back, to do the same thing all over again.
They play different roles to hold onto their equilibrium, even as that same equilibrium threatens to tear them apart.
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