Saving Me

Title: Saving Me

Genre: Somewhat AU, with drama, angst, et al.

Rating: T, for adult themes and content.

Teaser: Even when everything had fallen apart and her life had gone to hell, Kara Thrace never quit. Until now.

Summary: Life on New Caprica had never interested her. And yet a year later, Kara Thrace was without the military, which she had counted on the most. This is a look at her life, unbidden, and the choices she made that changed her life.

Disclaimer: The new version of Battlestar Galactica is owned by that lovely man, Ronald D. Moore and the entire staff… it's a Sci-Fi channel re-imagined series after all.

Timeline: This is likely set between the first and second parts of 'Lay Down Your Burdens' with bits back to the entire show thus far and even to bits before. You'll see what I mean later.

Notes: This is not my fandom. This isn't even close. However, this is my husband's favorite show on now so I do get to see it a fair bit as I'm home on Fridays and he isn't. This was written for a friend of mine who has been through so much as of late. Her health has been failing because of stress due to her job and to her life. She's stretching herself too thin. That and I was listening to Tom Petty earlier. There is one song of his that really puts all of the meaning into this fic. I don't really have it planned out, but I do intend to continue. I have my own 'ship' preference, but this story begins by following canon pairings. This story is not beta-read. Only if you seriously suggest I need one will I get one. Or if you volunteer. I'd be happy either way. So, Angel, this is for you!

Thank you for taking the time to read the legal tender. Now onwards with the story!

x-x-x

Prologue

It was yet another cold, rainy day on New Caprica. Even in their tiny tent, she could see the leak on the corner of the tarp, leaking a steady stream of droplets across what Samuel managed to call their bed. He moved at the feeling of the icy rain on his skin and immediately regretted it. The warm body next to his moaned and began to shift and he mentally kicked himself. She needed to sleep, he knew. She hadn't been sleeping very well lately.

"Starbuck?" he asked the shoulder softly. The arm belonging to the shoulder nudged him as she turned onto her stomach, lifting up her sleepy face to meet his.

"Hi."

"Hi," he said, unable to resist touching her. His fingers brushed her blonde hair from her eyes and tucked it behind her ears. "You sleep okay?"

"Just fine." Her eyes belied her words and she knew she was lying through her teeth. He kept his own features masked as she pushed herself into his knees, taking away the warmth of the blanket. She quickly pulled it from his legs and wrapped it around her shoulders. "It's cold."

"It's yet another morning on New Caprica," he yawned, stretching his form out on the cot. She chuckled as she threw his half of the blankets back over his form. "We should get to work."

Kara scoffed as she dropped next to him, her head burying itself into his shoulder. "Work… I've almost forgotten what that's like."

"I bet this beats getting up from the racks every morning and doing whatever it was that you as a CAG did," he said in a teasing voice. Instead of retorting in those smartass comments of hers, she remained silent, something tightening in her face.

"Right," she said, pulling away from him. His hands reached out to catch her by the waist and pull her back.

"I wasn't being serious," he murmured into her ear as she squirmed in his arms. "Kara? Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," she said through clenched teeth. She flung the blankets off of herself and moved to the small bit of floor they had in their tent. Samuel was then treated to the full military treatment, watching his scantily-clad wife do her pushups in rhythm to the wind and rain beating on their roof.

He sat up and watched her, hiding his concerns for her. Since they had moved to the new planet of supposed glorious dreams two months ago right after their wedding (which she had been careful to hold on Galactica since Pegasus was by far her least favorite place in the fleet right now), she had been sullen and withdrawn. He remembered seeing her on old Caprica and believing he had never seen anyone as beautiful as his Kara Thrace in her Colonial marines uniform and helmet. She had been wearing her CAG dress gear the day he asked her to marry him…

That had seemed so long ago, he thought, watching her grunt her personal count under her breath as she moved from pushups to crunches. Since that time, she had basically shut out everyone she ever cared about. He had watched the complete dissolution of her friendship with Lee Adama. He thought he had felt something there, but that something was gone. He remembered that argument, too. Everything with her in those weeks until he'd convinced her that maybe this ship wasn't the best place for her new attitude had been a struggle.

Like it or not, the Kara Thrace he knew was gone.

"Starbuck?" he asked, backing away as she kicked her legs onto the cot to continue her workout. "Kara?"

"I'm a little busy, Sam," she grunted, continuing to count under her breath as she moved.

He moved off of the bed and reached down to take her hands. She let out a stream of hot breath before raising her angry gaze to his. "Let go."

"No."

"Please let go?"

"No," he said, tugging her from her position. "I just think you look good enough the way you are."

Her smile was cold as she looked at him. "But I'll never be good enough, will I Sam?" she asked in that taut voice of hers.

"Come here," he said, reaching down and pulling her into his arms. Even as she fought against him, he had always used this to soothe her jangled nerves. Something was obviously bothering her. "What is it?"

"Nothin'," she replied in her callous voice, smirking up at him. "Did you honestly think that I'd let my body go to waste?"

"Well, not really," he said, tugging on her hair. "I like it this way."

"I do too."

"Then I don't see any problem," he murmured, bringing his face to hers.

x-x-x

Even with his body warm next to hers, Kara Thrace felt cold. She listened to the rain pattering and looked around, trying to find her clothes from the mess of garments on their floor. She reminded herself to be more careful because good, dry clothes were getting hard to come by. Slipping into her pants, she reached for her coat and moved out into the darkness. For as far as the eye could see there were tents stretching to the horizon. The ground was basically tread-over mud that had caked so hard into the ground that not even the hardest rain could wash it away. As she walked through, she could hear people talking behind their cramped little houses. Above them all, she could see a single beacon light standing out from Colonial One.

All at once, she felt like vomiting.

Her footsteps paused and she looked towards a larger tent. People were moving around inside. She could hear the sounds of laughing. She had almost forgotten what it was like to laugh.

"This is just too frakked up," she muttered under her breath. But no matter how she tried to will away everything that had happened these past six months, she just couldn't. She was pretending everything was okay, but for how long? She missed the demanding schedule of being a Viper pilot. Hell, she missed her pilots, even Hot Dog and Kat. She figured they were back on Galactica. That's where she would have been too if not for…

She forced herself to push the thought from her head. She refused to think about that now. Everything was good here. She had Anders. They were married. And though a kid wasn't in the near future, it wasn't out of the question. Maybe the day would come when he would stop playing Pyramid and she would stop working on old spare parts trying to convert them into engines to run the heating system on New Caprica. Still, it was better than an athletic refugee and the Galactica CAG now, wasn't it? This was a step towards retirement. At her age, this was a joke.

But still, it was a future. She saw what the Chief and Cally put together. They had married just weeks before her and Sam. They had put their lives together and were having a kid. Hell, the Chief was even Union President. Cally, his wife, was one of the best godsdamn engineers she had met. Still, with their jobs and their responsibilities, they had a kid coming.

How she envied that sometimes. She knew that Cally wouldn't have a problem being a mom. Cally probably didn't have a mom that slammed her fingers with the top lock of the piano every time she caught her unsuspecting daughter of playing her husband's most treasured possession. But thinking about kids brought back Simon and the stupid Farm and she shuddered, wrapping the coat tighter around herself. Gods, she missed Helo… her sparring partner and one of her closest friends on Galactica. He refused to leave because Sharon was still hurting. Starbuck supposed she missed Sharon, too.

She couldn't even think about Apollo. Just thinking about him made her vent her homicidal rages against some poor unsuspecting architectural nightmare and she wasn't motivated to fix anything else today.

He was likely one of the biggest reasons she had left Galactica, even if he was Commander Adama on Pegasus. Part of the reason was with the old man, Admiral Adama. Part of the reason was because of President Baltar and his supposed dislike of her.

No, things were better this way. She was better this way. She smiled down at the simple ring on her fourth finger. The smile turned bittersweet as she remembered telling the Admiral she was getting married. Colonel Tigh looked like he had had a stroke at her happy news. Dualla had looked like… well, like Dualla. Why shouldn't she share her happy news? It wasn't like Lee had been keeping his relationship with Dee all that private despite the fact he was a Commander and she was still a Petty Officer. Hell, Sam wasn't military. Which made her luckier than Lee and Dee, as their relationship seemed determined to failure by military code alone.

But Laura Roslin was no longer in charge of the Colonies. President Baltar didn't give a flying frak about the military code anymore. He just wanted this godsforsaken settlement and he had gotten it… no matter the cost. Maybe that was another reason why she'd left.

Starbuck just looked at herself as one of the lucky ones. Even though most of her friends were on Galactica, she had Sam. Right now, he was all she needed.

x-x-x

The next chapter goes back to moments after the part just before the schism.