What do you remember?

[embolalia.livejournal.com]

The power of memory is a strange thing. The first time I watched Battlestar is kind of a blur because it went so fast, for all that it was only a year ago. The passage of time changes the way we feel about things, the details that stand out, the way we respond when people mention them. Today let’s talk about memory. How do pilots remember different points in canon? We know how Kara remembers Zak, or at least how she remembers him during Act of Contrition--does that change? How would she describe him on the eve of Daybreak?





Today your challenge is to take a point anywhere in canon and write pilots talking or thinking about some earlier time. How do they think about that first Colonial Day a year later when they’re on New Caprica? What would Kara say about marrying Sam when she’s having an affair with Lee? What would Kara say to Lee about her friendship with his father, or to Laura about how she and Lee met? Do they talk about the affair after the fact, or about when Kara crashlanded on that moon? Answer in theory or fic! Feel free to leave more questions below as prompts, as well :)

Comments

[winegums.livejournal.com]

Kinda OT, but I've noticed it before and just HAD to say it - Zak in that cap looks so much like Lee, especially in the shadowy lighting. Tobias Mehler and Jamie don't actually look very alike when they're set side by side in Daybreak, but they lucked out with the resemblance on that casting.

(especially since it makes it rather easy to imagine Lee into the picture)

[deborah-judge.livejournal.com]

Lee doesn't feel anything like Zak, not as far as Kara can remember, or as far as she lets herself remember when she's touching him. He's smooth where Zak was rough, fierce when Zak was languid. She thinks about the differences. It makes it easier sometimes. It's only in dreams that she forgets, when she feels and sighs, and calls out a name, and sees a face, and when she wakes she still can't remember whose it was.

Ashes and Sand. Rated T.

[rirenec.livejournal.com]

The sand beneath her body looks a different colour though it runs between her hands just the same. It feels brittle, full of holes and dead. And it's everywhere. In her hair, ground into the follicles of her scalp. Under her nails and clinging to the tiny crevasses between her toes.

It’s in her mouth and eyes.

She's drowning in it.

Just like when she almost drowned through lack of air on that moon where her suit had been her only means of protection from it's blasting torrent.

Kara stops clawing at the grains (her fingers and hands unsteady) then begins to silently gather her clothing. The new morning sun doing little to ease the goose flesh on her skin. Her body now chilled as she galvanizes herself to withdraw further and further away from his heat.

In a rush, she patters silently in a ring around his sleeping body - leaving footsteps over the dunes created by their lovemaking. Every moment expecting him to wake and for him to look at her in derision. The image of his face settling on hers recalling to mind every moment she prayed for him to appear on the horizon and rescue her back then. To take her back from the pain and to give her the chance to apologise...

…even if she deserved to die because she was a coward.

Coward.

Too much of a coward to go before her superiors and report her liaison with a student. A coward too scared to risk what she’d got by not failing Zak when he wasn't ready. A coward to not tell the Old Man when he brought her aboard Galactica.

Coward.

A coward again now to run from what she's feeling. At how Lee's touch had reached deeper and connected inside of her on a level that she'd never known before. How his earnest declaration of love was far scarier than any grapple with a Raider, or the plummet to her almost certain death on a barren, toxic moon. How his blue eyes and taste were far more terrifying because at some point, he’d become a part of her and when he’d shouted out uncaring of the consequences, “I LOVE KARA THRACE!” her first instinct, despite her outward reservations had been to scream she loved him back. And further, how it had taken barely any persuasion from him for her to actually do it.

Because she loves him. She does. When they are together, it feels like nothing else matters.

Though to hear herself say it had come as a shock to her she realises now as she teases her shirt out from under his lax palm. Just like it had been on that moon when she'd thought she was going to die - a life for a life in justice - because that was the first time that she realised the truth. That she loved Zak, but was no longer in love with him. How that her mind and body had finally resigned his ghost to the past. How it was there that she’d realised something else. Something about the complicated and conflicted feelings she’d always had and still held for Lee. Increasing feelings.

On that moon and in that dead sand, she'd realised she loved him. In this sand here, she'd told him.

Kara slips the last of her clothes on and views him; her face tight and unreadable. Time stretching out from where she takes a moment to implant the shape of his body in this sand into her memory. Ashes and sand. Lee and her...

She gets to her feet and walks until out of his hearing distance, then runs away.

[Okay, this is possibly a bit OTT - but it's how it ended up.]

Re: Ashes and Sand. Rated T.

[kdbleu.livejournal.com]

Beautiful and achy. Making a memory for later counts too. ;)

[kdbleu.livejournal.com]

This feels so dream-like, from the beginning. Lovely.

[deborah-judge.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

Re: Ashes and Sand. Rated T.

[rirenec.livejournal.com]

Oh thank you. You're always so lovely. I was trying to link the memory and the now. Wasn't sure it came off. :)

Re: Ashes and Sand. Rated T.

[winegums.livejournal.com]

Lovely, and so sad (but this is UB, where everything is sad) *sob*

Re: Ashes and Sand. Rated T.

[kdbleu.livejournal.com]

Oh, I thought you did a lovely job of connecting the memory to the now. :)

Re: Ashes and Sand. Rated T.

[embolalia.livejournal.com]

I really like the emotional parallel you draw, between her acts of cowardice in loving Zak too much to hurt him and Lee so much she has to hurt him. Poor kids :(

[embolalia.livejournal.com]

Oh, brothers. I like her confusion, I think that for all that Kara/Lee is the OTP in this comm, she probably was confused about who she loved and how to deal with it.

[deborah-judge.livejournal.com]

I do wonder how much of the intensity of her feelings for Lee came from her associating him with Zak - at least at the beginning.

Re: Ashes and Sand. Rated T.

[rirenec.livejournal.com]

Thank you - though sorry I made to sob :'( (Hugs).

Re: Ashes and Sand. Rated T.

[rirenec.livejournal.com]

Oh Kara and her screwy heart and head. I'm so pleased you liked. Great prompt!

Re: Ashes and Sand. Rated T.

[rirenec.livejournal.com]

Thank you again. You're brilliant :)

[rirenec.livejournal.com]

This is lovely. So touching and almost remorseful.

[winegums.livejournal.com]

I never really thought of it that way, especially at the beginning - when they were together and talking that first time, it really didn't seem like Zak entered her head at all. It's certainly interesting to think of as a later possibility, though - her feelings must have been quite the jumble.

[embolalia.livejournal.com]

Kara sits with him a long time, not touching him, unable to reach across that last distance with Dee’s ghost filling the room. Beside her Lee has his arms around his knees, his face hidden. His shoulders shudder faintly as he mourns his wife.

“It’s okay, Kara,” Lee finally says, lifting his head, “you can go back to Galactica. I’m sure they need you there.”

She hesitates, then dismisses the idea. “You shouldn’t be alone.”

He frowns at the word shouldn’t. “It’s been a long day, Kara, I just need to sleep.”

The knot inside of her tightens at the thought of leaving him.

“Kara--” Lee starts.

“You tried to kill yourself too,” she bursts out. She swallows hard as Lee stares at her in startlement. “After Pegasus--Gods, Lee...How am I supposed to leave--” Kara’s hands clench at the thought of it.

Lee reaches out slowly, lays a hand over one of her fists. He stares at their joined hands as he speaks. “I watched your Viper explode, Kara. I saw it. And if I was ever going to--” His eyes flood again at the memory and his voice falters. “I survived that.” He looks up at her, guilt and love mixed together the way they always are.

Kara nods, not trusting her voice, wanting to wrap her arms around him, wanting to run as far away as she can so she’ll never be able to tell him she just held her own funeral.

It’s Lee who embraces her instead, pulls her against him so her cheek is pressed into his neck and she can smell his skin. “We’ll get through this,” he says softly, and she knows he means all of it: Dee, Earth, destiny.

Kara holds onto him as hard as she can and doesn’t tell him she thinks he might be wrong.

[rirenec.livejournal.com]

Oh, oh... (has to go and sit away a minute) it's beautiful and touching.

To Remember. Rated T.

[rirenec.livejournal.com]

[Slightly OT]

"Do you remember..." Kara, stopped and bit her tongue. Bringing up these things never was a good idea. Not when each day crashed against them so fast and then could so very easily be their last. It seemed to make memory a waste of time. Because memories hurt. They brought back people and places lost that could never be found or seen again.
"Go on, I'm listening. Not much else to do out here."
"You're supposed to be watching for cylons, remember?"
"Oh dear, has the infamous Starbuck got out the wrong side of someone else's bed this morning?"
Kara glowered at that.
"Frak you Apollo."
"Ha,ha, maybe next time, Starbuck."
"In your dreams you nugget-sucker," she snapped back. Her temper suddenly on edge because she'd wanted to talk serious.
Then again, did she? Did she really want to go back to then and with him - with Lee? Her eyes scanned the vista before her as her stomach swirled with last evenings nightcap and the recollections that it had dragged up from her not drinking enough to block them.
"You still there?"
Was she? Sometimes she wasn't so sure any more. Sometimes it felt like she was floating above and around everyone else - not quite able to connect with the now over the then. Her mind seemed to drift like this often, and in increasing frequency. Perhaps it was that she needed to talk. Just a bit. Just to open up a little to someone.
She parted her lips to...
"Yes, Apollo, Starbuck is out there. We still have you both on our screens." A voice chimed in disturbing her train of thought and thankfully reminding her that they were not truly alone.
"See, no good abusing and ignoring me. Galactica's hounding you too, so talk - spit it out, Starbuck."
"Nothing to say, only to remind you of how much you suck at flying. I'm coming over, so you better watch your ass," she finally retorted; relief and also anguish making wish for things to be another way.

[embolalia.livejournal.com]

Thank you :) Yeah, I was tearing up in my office writing it.

Re: To Remember. Rated T.

[embolalia.livejournal.com]

We're all so angsty today! Nugget-sucker really is hilarious :)

Re: To Remember. Rated T.

[rirenec.livejournal.com]

Angsty? Yep. It's Monday and it's raining here - so no room for playfulness. Though glad you liked my pilot's swagger!

Mr. (Vice) President

[embolalia.livejournal.com]

Something NOT entirely angsty :)

***

Lee collapses on his father’s couch with a sigh.

Kara smiles sympathetically, then her eyes turn mischievous. “Do I need to call you Mr. President, now, Mr. President?” she asks in a sultry tone.

He manages a smile, gaze lingering on Kara as she stands over him. “It’s actually a step down from being one of the gods,” he jokes.

Kara grins, then crosses to Adama’s private stash and pours them two glasses of brandy. “Here,” she holds one out. “To your presidency.” She settles beside Lee on the couch and they toast, drink.

“Do you think I can do this?” Lee asks after a moment, gazing into his glass.

Kara turns toward him quizzically. “Lee, Baltar did it. At least for a little while.” She nods when he chuckles. “You know,” she adds, “I helped him celebrate his first election.”

“Yeah,” Lee says tightly.

She stares at him, then bursts into giggles, leaning back against the couch.

“Kara?” Lee asks warily.

She sits up, eyes still bright, cheeks flushed from the liquor and the laughing. “I yelled your name,” she admits. “In bed with Baltar. I...yeah.”

Now it’s Lee’s turn to grin. “Really.” He looks at her a long moment as he processes all the other events of those days.

“Really.” Kara bites her lip, just a hint of nervousness crossing her face. “So if you wanted to make a tradition of it...”

Lee sets his glass to the side, then hers. He glances at Kara, then moves in an instant, one hand on her leg pulling her down on the couch as she shrieks in surprise and glee. He holds himself over her, heart racing as Kara nods.

He kisses her like he’s lost everything else. She kisses him back like he’s the only one she’s ever wanted.

Re: Mr. (Vice) President

[rirenec.livejournal.com]

Yep. So very good, and so very funny/sexy. You made the right step in the non angst direction.