Disclaimers- I don't own the concepts, I don't own the characters, I make no money, I make no sense and I get no sleep.

Summary - Kara's thoughts before Adama visits her in life station at the end of 'You Can't Go Home Again'. This story takes place in the same universe as 'Shards' but reading that one is by no means necessary to make sense out of this one.

Spoilers - Everything up to and including 'You Can't Go Home Again'.

Warnings - May be seen as containing references to child abuse (non-descriptive).

Feedback is always deeply appreciated!

To Walk Away
(tag for 'You Can't Go Home Again')

Part 1: Before

Kara was trying desperately to hold the memories at bay as she waited for Cottle to come back and give her the verdict regarding her knee but even with the drugs currently making their way through her system she could still feel the pain and she knew that wasn't a good thing. She could also remember lying on a different bed with another knee injury many years before and she knew what had happened then. That wasn't something she was ever likely to forget... though maybe this time around it wouldn't be that serious, maybe this time around the damage wouldn't turn out to be as extensive, maybe this time around she would get lucky.

She knew there was a fairly good chance that this time around the damage had been to the patella rather than the ligaments. That was her best hope. After all, she was well aware of how her injury had occurred and she knew that --even though she had smashed her knee against a rock-- when it happened she had been in the process of being dragged by a parachute. That sounded like an unlikely source of comfort but it meant that there had been a major impact but no twisting motion and her knee hadn't been bearing any weight at the time... not like it had been in that pyramid court all those years before.

The problem was that, even though she knew the circumstances were different, she still couldn't stop thinking about what had happened back then and what the consequences had been. To make matters worse there was also the fact that she knew that --after what she had confessed to before she had crashed on that moon-- there were no guarantees the Old Man would even let her stay on the Galactica if she could no longer fly. That was a terrifying thought. Kara couldn't imagine herself anywhere else in the fleet and much less could she imagine herself just waiting there, unaware of what was going on around her and being unable to do anything but wait for the cylons to finish her off.

In a way that was her worst nightmare.

She remembered the countless sleepless nights she had spent as a child dreading the moment in which her mother --or one of her boyfriends-- would come into her room and she remembered how, once she had gone off to flight school, she had promised herself that she would never allow herself to be put back in that position. That was one of the main reasons why she loved flying so much. When she was in her viper no one could touch her. In her viper she was alone, she held her life in her hands and, as crazy as it sounded considering that she was a fighter pilot on the front lines of a brutal war, she felt safe.

Unfortunately her current injury meant that she didn't know if she'd ever be able to get back into the cockpit, nor did she know if she would be able to cope with being one of the protected instead of one of the protectors. What she did know was that, no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't imagine herself going back to being that weak, that helpless.

Well, maybe it wouldn't come to that. Maybe her injury wouldn't turn out to be that serious after all. Besides --even in a worst case scenario-- she knew that even if she could no longer fly she was still the only flight instructor they had left. Kara had never expected to find herself taking comfort in that fact --especially not after Zak's death, when going back to teaching was the last thing she'd wanted to do-- but she knew that that meant that the Old Man would probably have no choice but to allow her to stay. Unfortunately the fact that she would probably be allowed to stay did nothing to change the fact that the Commander had every reason to hate her.

Of course, Kara was well aware that in the end she had no one to blame for her current predicament but herself. Not only had she screwed everything up and gotten Zak killed in the process but she had also allowed herself to forget and let her guard down. She had allowed herself to trust the Old Man, she had opened up to him and allowed him past her defenses when she really should have known better than that. She had allowed him to see past her Starbuck persona, even though she had known all along that there was something he didn't know. That had been a mistake and now the time had come for her to pay the price.

Chances were that she was going to be spending the rest of her life under his command, seeing the hatred reflected in his eyes each and every day. That was far from a comforting thought... even though Kara was well aware that she fully deserved it.

She was still thinking about that when she saw him walk into her cubicle. She tried to look into his eyes, hoping to see some sort of hint that maybe he had forgiven her --though she knew that would never really happen-- but the only thing she could see was a mask and that terrified her... especially because she couldn't get away, because she was totally at his mercy.

On a rational level she knew her reaction was absurd, she knew she had nothing to fear because he would never hit her --or at least she had never thought he would-- but at the same time she couldn't help but to remember his words from their last encounter and experience had taught her the hard way that those words were invariably followed by actions. In fact those words were still resonating in her ears... 'walk out of this cabin... while you still can'. That was what he had told her only this time around she couldn't possibly walk away and that meant that she had no means of escape. The only thing that was left for her to do was to try and conceal her fear as he came to stand next to her bed.

Part 2: After

Kara was curled up on her side holding the stogie the Commander had just given her like a lifeline... or at least as close to curled up as she could manage with a knee that was currently immobilized. That wasn't helping matters and neither was the fact that she couldn't stop the tears from falling. She hated that.

She was Starbuck and Starbuck wasn't weak, she didn't cry. It was as simple as that. Besides, tears were stupid anyway and they never solved anything.

The thing was that for some reason the Old Man seemed to have forgiven her and she just didn't know what to make out of any of it. She couldn't understand why or how he could possibly have done it. She had been lying there, ready to take whatever he could dish out and then he had actually told her that she had done good and somehow she didn't think it was just because she had managed to bring back a captured raider, one that was bound to provide them with their first opportunity to study what it was that they were up against.

In fact he had seemed to be almost happy to see her, relieved... and then he had kissed her. That was the last thing she had been expecting and she hadn't really known what to do, how to respond. In fact she had barely been able to keep herself from breaking down right then and there as she tried to figure out what to make out of any of it. Luckily he had left shortly after that and that meant she had a chance to try to regain her composure... maybe.

The problem was that she knew Cottle could walk in at any time and she was far from ready for that.

She didn't need anyone to see her like that and --even though she was still anxious about what the doc would tell her-- she really needed a few minutes to herself, a few minutes to at least try to make some sort of sense out of what had happened.

Unfortunately that was easier said than done because, no matter how she looked at it, it just made no sense at all. She remembered how angry the Old Man had been so, why did he seem so relieved to have her back? Sure, she was his best pilot but there were no guarantees that she would ever fly again, that she wouldn’t become a dead weight for the fleet, a useless mouth to feed at a time when resources were scarce. It was true that, even if she could no longer fly, she was still the only experienced flight instructor they had left but... well, it was a fact that pretty much anyone who could fly could teach and besides, the Old Man had to know that --as far as flight instructors went-- she was a pretty crappy one. Sure, she was a good pilot --very, very good-- but her skill in the air was based on her instincts, her feel for her viper. Books had never really been her thing and --unlike Lee-- she couldn't quote a flight manual to save her life.

That brought her back to her original question: why had the Old Man seemed almost relieved to have her back? In fact, why had the fleet still been there for her to get back to in the first place? That the fleet would be gone by the time she got there was something she hadn't even paused to consider in her dogged determination to make it out of that damned moon in something remotely resembling one piece but the bottom line was that that was exactly what should have happened.

They had fought the cylons around that moon and the Commander must have known that that meant that staying in the area was a pretty dumb risk to take. That was only common sense. After all, even if the cylons hadn't had time to report their position back to their basestar --and even if they hadn't somehow been linked to some sort of 'central network' that could have picked up the fact that they had been destroyed-- their absence was still bound to be noticed sooner or later. It was true that for the military the idea of not leaving anyone behind was a matter of principle, but to risk all that remained of mankind in an attempt to rescue a single pilot and a screw up at that? That made no sense... especially because the Commander must have known how long her oxygen supply was supposed to last, so what had the fleet still been doing there long after that oxygen had run out?

Maybe there was a reason she couldn't see because of all the drugs Cottle was pumping into her, something that would make sense once her head had had a chance to clear. That was the closest thing to a logical explanation she could come up with for the time being. The truth was that Kara hated being so doped she couldn't even think. She felt like her brain was stuffed with cotton... though at the same time she knew that that cotton was the only thing that was keeping the pain down to a manageable level now that the adrenaline had worn off so it was definitely the lesser evil.

Well, at least the good news was that she was finally clean, she was safe --or at least as close to safe as she could be under the circumstances-- and she was home... even if the why and how of that last part refused to make any sense at all.