no_takebacks | Mar. 31st, 2012

Let's talk today about all the ways that pilots save each other. There's the actual physical acts of saving, like Kara ramming her plane into his and bringing them home in the Miniseries and shooting the marines that are about to put a bullet in Lee's head in The Oath or kicking that bottle to Lee when he's being strangled in the bar in Colonial Day.

Sadly I don't think Lee ever is in position to physically save Kara that we see. (Though an argument can maybe be made that he keeps her from dying/being killed on a few occasions perhaps, like all the effort he expends in AOC/YCGHA gives her enough time to get off the red moon and make it back to the fleet, or maybe talks Bill into giving her that Demetrius mission rather than an airlocking). But I always think of his faith in her as saving her emotionally at various points, like the Six of One brig scene and at the memorial wall in Islanded. Or even earlier, when he makes Tigh bully her out of bed/brooding headspace/giving up in Litmus. Or when he stands up at the end of Scar and finishes her toast. Or even when he says without hesitation or question that he will back her up when she goes to shoot Cain. How about the same for Kara--does she save Lee emotionally at any point that we get to see? I think we see her try a few times...in Revelations, when Dee dies, when he comes back from his little "spacewalk", but they're all aborted attempts or we don't really see much of it. (ooh just thought of one more--in the deleted scene from Razor when Kara sits with Lee as they watch the Olympic Carrier footage and she tries to stop him from obsessing over and blaming himself.)

There's a few instances where we see them actually physically working together to save each other's lives too--like shooting out the glass in the oxygen-deprived firing range in Final Cut or backing each other up in The Oath or on Kobol when the cylons find them.

It's easy to imagine though that there were millions of small ways that they saved each other every day, just by managing to give each other faith and comfort and friendship and understanding to keep themselves going. To keep going out there every day, to lead the pilots in battle, to hold on to their belief that they would find Earth someday, that they wouldn't always be at war, that maybe their would be porch swings and bright shiny futures someday.

Talk about some of the ways, in both canon and your own personal headcanon, that they did or might have saved each other. Write (or prompt) a drabble (just a 100 words exactly) that shows one saving the other--or better yet, them both saving each other or trying to.