skip the light fandango

I start, and then never finish, a good amount of fic. Sometimes I don't finish because I get sidetracked by work and commitments and by the time I get back to it, I have no memory of where the hell I was going with it. Sometimes I don't finish because I get the evil writer's block. And sometimes I don't finish because I get jossed and don't know how to handle it (I love my BtVS canon closed, thank you). In cleaning up my hard drive I found two Kara/Leoben fic I started and then never finished for reasons of jossing and not knowing how to get from a sucky place to a not-sucky one. I'm going to put them here in my LJ just in case I ever feel a need to come back and revisit. There's another one, one that I planned to come back and rework into a post-Maelstrom fic, but of course I can't find that one anywhere and probably lost it when my home computer crashed. Woe.



Season 3 speculation featuring Kara and Leoben. I forgot I wrote this and looking back, have no idea where I was going with it. No clue at all. It's probably best I was jossed.

****
She doesn’t remember her capture. When she wakes up behind bars, the throbbing of her head and the knot at the base of her skull tell her why that might be.

Her eyes dart around the small space, taking in the windowless walls, the toilet in the corner, the heavy steel bars that lead into a narrow, empty corridor that ends in a thick steel door.

Kara feels her heart fluttering in her throat and when she reaches up to brush her hair out of her eyes she notices her hand shaking. The combination of terror and pain makes her stomach roll and she sucks in a breath, closes her eyes and fights off the nausea.

When the urge to vomit recedes, just a bit, she opens her eyes again and begins to look for a weapon, something, anything that can slice through skin and vein.

Not for them. For her. She won’t let them make her into a machine.

When she can’t find anything that will work, she begins to scream.

*

Her throat is raw from hours of yelling; it feels swollen and parched and she doesn’t think she would be able to speak if anyone came.

She doesn’t get a chance to test it, because no one does.

*

Three days, at least three days that she knows of, and just when she decides they are going to let her starve to death alone behind bars she hears the mechanical hum and grind of a Centurian approaching.

She’s pretty far gone, body and mind numb, but no amount of numbness can stop the spike of terror she feels at the sound. She’s a frakkin’ rat, trapped, and she’s seen the kind of experiments the Cylons run. Kara would rather starve than be forced to use her body to nourish a little machine.

She can’t.

The door opens and the machine has a gun trained on her, but Kara doesn’t move, not forward in attack or away in fright. She’s weak and she knows it, dehydration making her limbs shaky and useless. She won’t let it see her flinch though, so she looks at the roaming glow of red and glares, dares it with her eyes to shoot her in the head and put an end to it all.

Better that way, better than any of the alternatives.

Death doesn’t come, at least not literally. It’s the blonde who steps through the open door behind the Centurion, swaying hips and smirking smile. Kara wants to tell her to save the femme fatale act for the men but she’s holding a large bottle of water in one manicured hand. She approaches Kara, gets so close that all Kara can see is her bare knee.

“Enjoying your stay?” Her voice is mocking, provocative, but Kara ignores the challenge, concentrates on the kneecap staring her in the face and imagines breaking it, making it buckle. The silence seems to anger the blonde.

“I should leave now, let you sit in here and rot. If it were entirely up to me you’d die in this room, your tiny, primitive human brain shriveling up and seizing from the lack of water but. . . there’s been some dissent.” She bends to the side, tall body folding neatly until her face is almost down to Kara’s eye-level. Her free hand reaches out, grips Kara’s chin with bruising force as she tilts her face up until the back of her head jolts against the concrete wall of the cell.

For a split second she thinks the blonde is just tired of being ignored but then there’s water splashing over her mouth and face, running into her hair and down her neck.

She wants to resist, keep her lips pressed tight but her body is starving for water and who knows when she’ll have access to more. So she opens her mouth against the steady stream, gulps what she can and sputters out the excess. By the end she’s choking on it, choking on the satisfied look in the blonde’s narrowed eyes, too.

The Cylon lets go of her chin and drops the nearly empty water to the floor. She stands up and begins to move away and Kara wants to lash out, but she can’t. The water is sitting heavy in her stomach, making it roll, and she’s just got it down but she already knows it won’t stay that way.

She fights the nausea but her body refuses and by the time the door to her cell is swinging closed, Kara is on her knees, vomiting.

*

She’s lying on the floor, too lightheaded and weak to stay upright, when the door swings open the second time.

“Kara,” a voice calls and though she doesn’t recognize the concern she knows who it belongs to.

He bends down, scoops her up in his arms and though her body is too weak to resist, her mind is screaming. Her head rocks down against his shoulder and he leans into her, lips pressed against the dirty matted hair above her ear.

“I came as soon as I could. I’m taking you out of here.”

And she knows better than to trust him, knows that this is just another game, but when he carries her out of the cell and out of the prison and into fresh air she can’t stop the wave of relief that washes through her.

It’s raining and she tries to stay conscious, concentrate on each drop as it hits her dry skin and count the steps as he moves away from the building where she was held prisoner, but she’s weak and tired and they’re only seventeen steps south when her brain gives up.

*

She wakes up in a bed, in a room with windows and soft, natural light and it takes her a moment to remember what came before.

She sits up quickly, too quickly, and a wave of nausea forces her to still and close her eyes. Her hands run over her body, checking for wires or stitches or some other sign that they’ve done something to her, feels relief when she doesn’t feel anything. She keeps her eyes closed so that her stomach will settle, doesn’t open them again until she hears a soft knock on the door, the click of the latch as the knob turns.

Leoben crosses the threshold with the hint of a smile on his lips, and Kara glances around for something, anything, to use against him. The room’s furniture is solid, heavy, empty of weapons. She clenches her fists in frustration and a shadow passes over the blue of his eyes.

“I know you won’t allow yourself to believe it, not yet, but I’m not here to hurt you, Kara. I am only here to help.”

“Then let me get back to my people.” Her voice cracks and wobbles with the effort and she winces at the pain. When the corners of his eyes crinkle with concern she feels the heat of her anger rise, give her more energy than she has a right to.

Leoben shakes his head. “I’m sorry, I thought you knew. Your people are gone. . there’s no one left.”

She leaps at him with a cry of anguish. Stumbles, and as she falls she feels a flicker of involuntary relief that she’s still alive.

Just a flicker, before it’s crushed by grief.

*

He’s gone when she wakes up again, and she frowns. The last thing she remembers is falling to the ground, struggling with him as he came to help her.

She doesn’t remember going to sleep.

Kara rolls to her side, slowly, testing her body. She aches all over but nowhere more than a tiny spot on her upper arm.

She looks at the small bruise, sees the mark of a needle. It terrifies her, a hot rush of fear running through her body at the sight and it rivals what she felt when she first woke up in the prison cell, what she felt when she saw those women back on Caprica and realized she was about to be one of them.

The cylons are drugging her, again, and the knowledge makes Kara wish she was still on the concrete in that cell, already dead.

*

The door to the bedroom is locked from the outside, the windows bolted closed and shatterproof. There is an adjoining bathroom, and once Kara figures out there’s no immediate escape she locks herself inside and takes a shower.

She stands under the spray for a long time, lips parted so the water can trickle down her throat. She’s still so thirsty, but it’s not as bad as before so Leoben must have given her something in the time she was out.

She doesn’t remember.

She runs her hands over her sunken stomach. It’s been days, at least, since she last ate but she isn’t hungry. Hunger came and went and now all she feels is empty.

Only when her legs start to tremble with the effort of standing does she turn off the cooling water.

*

When Leoben returns she’s dressed in a clean pair of clothes she found in the dresser against the wall. She’s sitting in a chair, facing the door, and when he smiles at her with his lips closed she glares but stays put, for the moment.

“You’re looking better. Feeling better too, I hope.” He stops just out of her reach and looks at her like he actually cares.

Kara knows better. Her lips tighten against the urge to respond. She won’t give him the satisfaction. He waits for several silent moments and then sighs, a look of disappointment crossing his features.

“You must be hungry. There’s food in the kitchen, or I can bring you something in here if you’d prefer.”

Kara snorts, and she knows she shouldn’t, but she can’t help responding. “You act like I’m your frakking guest, not a prisoner you’re drugging and keeping in a locked room.”

Something clouds his eyes and for a second she’s treated to a flash of the Leoben she knows, the calculating, cold Cylon who tried to crush her windpipe as he whispered of their destiny. It’s comforting to see, even if it’s gone in a flash, replaced by a mock sadness.

“I regret the need for the methods of restraint, but you’re too volatile. If I didn’t prevent it you’d run out of here on a foolish hope of escape and they’d find you. You’d end up back in that prison, or worse. Is that what you want?”

She wants to tell him that she knows he’s playing with her, but she isn’t sure what his game is yet so she says nothing at all. The fact is that he’s offering her an escape from the bedroom and even if its an empty escape to another Kara-proof room, she’d be stupid to antagonize him any more.

Kara stands up and slowly walks toward the door.

***-- The worst cliff-hanger ever :)

This one I wrote immediately after "the look" Kara and Leoben share over Kacey's hospital bed. It was a follow-up to "Pure Daughter", a drabble I posted about Kara and Kacey. I remember thinking that I'd never seen Kara so vulnerable and that I mostly thought Kara was playing Leoben in that moment, to get his guard down, but there was a kernal of really connecting with him then because of the forgiveness he was offering her. This came directly after that. I ended up scrapping it because it was jossed, of course, but also because the way I wrote it required the reader to share my interpretation of Kara's state of mind without me doing much to set it up. What that meant was that if you didn't see Kara the way I did in that precise moment, this ficlet seemed *really* OOC. A good example of something that worked in my head, but never got there on the page.

****

He left her alone with it. She can’t believe he left her alone with it.

It’s skipping around, short hops on tiny legs that she knows can’t possibly be responsible for the corresponding pound in her head but it doesn’t matter what she knows. Maybe, maybe she doesn’t really know anything anymore. Two years ago she knew she was lucky to be alive, a year ago she knew they were finally safe from the enemy, four months ago she knew she was never going to fall for Leoben’s tricks. Yesterday, she knew she wasn’t anybody’s mother.

Now, now she knows nothing.

It grabs her leg, smiles, babbles something in a language Kara doesn’t understand and her skin crawls, a rolling march from shin to spine. For one brief second she considers kicking it away, vicious strike from her booted foot. The thought slams into her and she recoils, eyes skating wildly over the bouncing kidthing on the couch before they land on the steel of the bathroom door.

Escape, from it or from herself she isn’t sure and she stands with her back against the closed door and trembles. She walks to the sink, smoothes her hair back from her face as she looks in the mirror, searches for signs of her mother.

She’s not, she’s not her mother, she’s not a mother. . .

A muffled cry, a sickening thump and Kara spins around and is out of the bathroom, heart in her throat as her eyes search the apartment, looking for her. She sees her legs first, tiny legs for a little body but the pool of blood doesn’t look little at all.

Suddenly, she knows something again.

This is all her fault.

*

It’s the first time she’s been outside her prison for four months and she doesn’t care, can’t think about escape, not when there is a little girl lying unconscious in a hospital bed because of her.

She watches Kacey’s relaxed face, watches her lashes where they lie against her cheek, tries not to compare the pale pink complexion against the stark white of the bandage around her head. She looks for signs of Leoben, of. . . of herself and she isn’t sure what she sees other than a defenseless child.

My fault.

Kara steals a glance at Leoben, expecting to see him looking at her with his special brand of detached anger or maybe even smug self-satisfaction, but he isn’t looking at her at all. His eyes are on Kacey, full of unguarded concern and when he glances up, catches her looking she meets his gaze for several long seconds before she swallows and looks back down.

My fault.

They sit for hours, keeping vigil. Kara won’t move, but she accepts the steaming mug of tea that Leoben brings her, accepts the brush of his hand across her shoulders, accepts his concerned glances. She’s using every bit of energy she has to pray to the gods that they won’t punish Kacey for her mistakes and there’s nothing left for resistance and the past few months have depleted all of her reserves.

“It’s not your fault. It was an accident,” he says, and gods she wants to believe him but she can’t, so she prays instead.

When Kacey opens her eyes, Kara’s not prepared for the sharp bite of joy that washes through her. She reaches out, strokes the soft skin of the child, reaches out, strokes the rough warm skin of the father.

And she still doesn’t know if she’s a mother, but she knows that no matter what else happens she can’t let this happen again. Kara will do whatever it takes to make sure this doesn’t happen again. The gods have answered her prayers and Kara makes a promise in return. Anything.

Kacey sticks her fingers in her mouth, looks at her with big shy eyes and Kara couldn’t have stopped the relieved smile that breaks across her face if she’d wanted to. The little girl smiles back, speaks around tiny fingers and suddenly it doesn’t seem like a foreign language at all.

“Ma.”

Kara’s heart skips.


*

Leoben holds the door open for her and it’s a different door, one without locks or bars.

She knows she should be paying attention, looking for her chance to escape but she’s so tired, so tired, and there’s a small warm bundle of kid in her arms and at this moment that’s all that matters. Kacey’s head is resting on Kara’s shoulder, her humid breath against Kara’s throat tangible proof that she’s alive. She walks carefully, mindful of the bandage still swathing the kid’s head, every single bit of her attention focused on keeping her movements smooth and her arms tight but not too tight.

No more mistakes—that’s all that matters. She promised anything, and Kara Thrace keeps her promises.

Leoben touches her elbow and Kara’s eyes swing to him.

“Let me take her,” he says, but it isn’t an order and when she frowns and shakes her head he nods. He leads her down a short hallway, opens another door and steps to the side and when she moves past him he brushes one hand against the wall to turn on a light and he brushes the other hand against the small of her back.

Kara steps over the threshold and looks around, nervous and tense because she doesn’t know what to do, she’s not a mother and she doesn’t know what to do. So when Leoben steps in front of her she doesn’t move away, even when his hands reach out to pull Kacey’s sweater down her shoulders, even when his knuckles brush against the side of Kara’s breast as he slips the sweater off.

Her eyes dart up and meet his and she knows he’s the enemy, she knows his very existence is a godsdamn aberration, but he’s looking at her with that same soft look he’d given her sitting beside the hospital bed and right this minute something inside her needs to believe it’s not a lie.

She hasn’t been touched in so long. She hasn’t been understood for even longer. She can’t remember the last time she was forgiven for being such a frak up, and so she doesn’t glare or look away or do any of the other things she’s done to avoid the searching power of his eyes over the past months.

Everything is so quiet, the trio of their breath the only sound that punctuates the silence. Leoben’s look of tenderness turns darker, warmer, the longer she holds his gaze and something treacherous inside her reacts, coils and flexes low in her stomach.

And she knows then, with perfect clarity, what she’s going to do. Kara knows what she’s going to surrender to him and to the gods because she promised. She promised anything.

Kara keeps her eyes locked on his as he extracts Kacey from her arms, doesn’t allow herself to look away as he lays her gently in the crib and covers her with a thin blanket, and when his attention is back on her again she lets him see what he’s been looking for all these months.

*


“I’m going to bed,” he says as they step into the hall and he closes the door to Kacey’s room behind them. “I’d like for you to join me”.

It isn’t the first time she’s heard it but it’s the first time she agrees.

He hesitates for one second, two, wary disbelief playing in the contours of his face. When she doesn’t take it back he closes the distance between them and kisses her. He’s tentative, doubtful, and the slide of his lips across hers is too gentle so she steps into him, presses her hips to his and opens her mouth. She needs this to be a hard frak, nothing gentle, because she can’t, not that way. . .

Kara moans when he pushes her back against the wall of the hall, shuts off her mind and lets experience take over. His hands reach up and cup the sides of her head, tilt her face and hold her steady while he locks his tongue with hers and she yields, arches into him and lets him lead her down the hallway and into another bedroom. Lets him touch her, lets him undress them both

The sounds he’s making low in his throat are almost desperate, like he really has been waiting for her like he said and she wants to tell him to shut the frak up but she can’t.

When he pushes inside she feels a twinge of discomfort and she must have flinched or made some noise because Leoben stills. He pulls back, breathes her name into her ear and tells her that she is beautiful, so beautiful, so perfect, so his and all the while his fingers are tripping over her, driving away her lingering reluctance with clever strokes. His free hand grabs her outer thigh, pulls and tips her into a different angle and this time when he pushes forward he slides deep in one smooth motion. The sound that Kara makes has nothing to do with pain and she hates herself for it.

She wraps her legs around his waist, flexes her fingers into his back and moves against him until she finds a rhythm that forces out all thought, all doubt. No room for anything but the thrum of her body as he drives into her, sounds mingling as they find the perfect motion. And she isn’t prepared for how quickly she’s on the edge, or how effortlessly he pushes her over it.

Leoben groans her name as he comes, a benediction torn from his throat and Kara clenches her eyes shut and tries to ignore the dull aching pain that fills her.

She feels bruised, inside out.

“I love you, Kara,” he murmurs against her breast and she knows he means it and she knows what she has to do, has known since he told her she would.

So she does, she threads her hand in the sweat-damp hair at the base of his neck and tilts his head back so that he can see her, so that he can see his vision come to fruition.

“I . . . I love you,” she chokes out in a whisper. And she wraps her arms around him as joy glints in his eyes and tries not to think about how few people she’s said those words to in her life, about how she must add him to the small list.

Later, when he’s completely relaxed, in sleep and in his belief that he’s won, she puts a pillow over his face so she can’t see the betrayal in his eyes as she stabs him with the scissors she’d stolen from Kacey’s hospital room.

She ignores the part of her that actually believes it is a betrayal.

Anything, anything, anything, she thinks, a loop to make her forget the apology that threatens to break in and choke her. She grabs Kacey and makes her way to the door that will lead them outside, to freedom. To safety.

She promised.
****